BullSequana

BullSequana is the brand name of a range of high-performance computer systems produced by Bull.

BullSequana is the brand name for a family of high-performance computing (HPC) systems originally developed by Bull SAS and subsequently produced under the Atos and Eviden brands following corporate acquisitions. Atos acquired the Sequana brand through its 2014 acquisition of server and supercomputer vendor Bull. The product line spans rack-mounted servers, mid-range compute platforms, and large-scale supercomputers, with deployments across scientific research institutions, government bodies, and commercial enterprises globally.

Background and naming

Bull was founded in 1931, as H.W. Egli–Bull, to capitalize on the punched card technology patents of Norwegian engineer Fredrik Rosing Bull. After a reorganization in 1933, the company was renamed Compagnie des Machines Bull (CMB). The "Sequana" name, applied to the high-performance computing product line, is derived from the Latin name for the Seine River, reflecting the brand's French heritage. Bull is the Atos brand for its technology products and software, distributed in over 50 countries worldwide, with a heritage of over 80 years of technological innovation, 2,000 patents, and a 700-strong R&D team.

By joining the Atos group in 2014, Bull entered the pre-exascale HPC market. From 2015 to 2020, almost one machine per year was announced, including the BullSequana (2016) and JUWELS (2020), which achieved computing powers of 25 and 44.1 petaflops respectively.

The range includes

• BullSequana S series - a modular compute platform optimised for AI and GPU-intensive tasks.
• BullSequana X series - supercomputers which are claimed to operate at exascale