With 122 million computing hours delivered in just one year, the ENEA supercomputer CRESCO has reaffirmed its central role in advancing scientific research and industrial innovation.
According to the report High Performance Computing on CRESCO Infrastructure: Research Activity and Results 2024, more than 200 research centers, universities and companies relied on CRESCO in 2024. Applications ranged from nuclear energy and materials science to molecular dynamics, biotechnology, climate studies and the digital and energy transitions.
Among the flagship projects supported was the PNRR Divertor Tokamak Test Facility Upgrade (DTT-U), aimed at improving the reliability of systems at the fusion energy facility under construction at ENEA’s Frascati Research Center. CRESCO enables highly advanced simulations of plasma behavior, a key component in fusion research.
The main computing resources are housed at ENEA’s Portici Research Center near Naples and are accessible to both public and private scientific communities. Operational since 2008, CRESCO currently delivers over 9 PFlops of peak performance across 758 computing nodes.
In June 2025, CRESCO8 ranked 228th on the Top500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers and 134th on the Green Top500, which measures energy efficiency. This performance is supported by an advanced water-cooling system capable of dissipating up to 98% of generated heat, cutting energy consumption by 40%.
“The contribution of CRESCO to research has grown steadily since 2008,” said Giovanni Ponti, head of ENEA’s ICT systems division. “The launch of CRESCO8 in 2025 marks a strategic step forward, significantly expanding computational capacity and reinforcing ENEA’s role as a reference point for high-performance computing at both national and international level.”