BRGM, INSA Centre-Val de Loire, the University of Orléans and the University of Tours are joining forces to set up a joint data centre called the Centre-Val de Loire Regional Data Centre.
25 May 2021
The BRGM Data Centre infrastructure

The BRGM Data Centre infrastructure, enabling data to be stored, saved and processed.

© BRGM

A new data centre for pooling regional digital resources

The Centre-Val de Loire Regional Data Centre will be a high-level infrastructure offering innovative services to all teachers, teachers-researchers and researchers in the region from this year.

In the 21st century, it is essential to have reliable and secure digital data. The knowledge they contain and the way in which they are produced are therefore vital for universities and research organisations, which manage a large amount of sometimes sensitive data, and require increasingly large computing capabilities.

An infrastructure hosted by BRGM

In view of the difficulty they would have in meeting these digital transformation challenges separately, BRGM, the University of Tours, the University of Orléans and INSA Centre-Val de Loire have decided to pool their resources: through a facility located on the BRGM campus in Orléans, they have devised a high-level “Centre-Val de Loire Regional Data Centre" infrastructure.

This is a pioneering data centre based on previously existing resources: "Discussions had already been underway for several months with the universities and the INSA Centre-Val de Loire to pool our technical and human resources," explains Jean-Marc Trouillard, Director of Digital Infrastructures and Services at BRGM. Since the beginning of 2021, the facility has housed and shared the high-powered computing resources of the Calcul Scientifique et Modélisation Orléans-Tours (CaSciModOT) federation, which serves the regional community. The Data Centre’s services will be used more and more, depending on the increasing needs of the partners.

A label from the Ministry of Research

With a budget of 9 million euros for the period 2021-2027, this project benefits from the financial support of the founding partners, but also from the Regional Council and the State via the State-Region Plan Contract, as well as from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The worthiness of the project was acknowledged when the Ministry for Higher Education, Research and Innovation officially approved the Centre-Val de Loire Regional Data Centre in December 2020, as part of its digital strategy for higher education, particularly with respect to “infrastructure solutions and shared digital services”.

While the project is deliberately designed to further the development and promote the use of infrastructures that serve the interests of all regional stakeholders, it may take on other partners in time.