Global Parametrics to use supercomputer to hone climate & seismic models

Global Parametrics, the parametric and index-based risk transfer company that launched with the backing of the UK and German governments, will utilise one of the world’s fastest computers to enhance its climate and seismic risk models and help it develop products.

Global Parametrics has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC), enabling it to leverage the computational power of the MareNostrum 4, a 13.7 Petaflops supercomputer.

The company expects to use this new computational power to rapidly improve the speed and scale of its climate-related risk modelling and produce high-speed earthquake simulations to place it at the forefront of seismic risk modelling.

Hector Ibarra, CEO, Global Parametrics, commented, “We explore opportunities that mainstream industry is unable to, particularly in creating partnerships that will help us to achieve market development in emerging economies.

“Ultimately, we aim to become a leading incubator for growing the financial disaster risk management market, with a particular focus on accelerating financial inclusion and building the resilience of vulnerable communities affected by catastrophic disasters and major climate events.”

The agreement will include the sponsorship of a research specialist who will be tasked with developing new applications to expand the frontier of weather and seismic risk modelling using the supercomputer, which has one of the largest processing capacities in the world and is housed inside the Torre Girona Chapel (below).

Global Parametrics hopes this will help it to increase the speed and scale of its seismic risk modelling and increased the acceptance of new climate risk models in the broader risk transfer and financial markets.

It also means that Global Parametrics will be able to increase its capacity to deploy technology for commercial use by re/insurers, accelerating the development of risk transfer products for low and middle-income communities that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change-related weather events.

Dr. José María Cela, Director of Computer Applications in Science and Engineering at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, said, “We’re pleased that our technological capabilities and insight will be used to accelerate progress in building resilience around climate change and driving financial inclusion in developing markets. This partnership with Global Parametrics aligns perfectly with our mission to be a leader in the innovative application of computation to non-conventional fields and it also allows us to deepen our own academic expertise in a new and important area.”

Global Parametrics underwrites using capacity channeled through its Natural Disaster Fund (NDF), which was seeded by the UK’s DFID at launch.

The Natural Disaster Fund collects fees and makes pay-outs on parametric derivative contracts when natural disasters occur and Global Parametrics has targeted welcoming third-party capital or ILS investors into the fund as it increases its capacity needs.