Mexico City, Mexico — President Claudia Sheinbaum says construction of the Coatlicue supercomputer will begin next year. Mexico’s new public supercomputer will bring the country the full use of artificial intelligence and data processing.
“Today we don’t have enough computing power, so this will help us a lot, not only in the development of science and technology, but also in the development of the country.”
The president said that 375,000 computers will process data simultaneously to make weather predictions, prevent tax crimes in order to speed up the operation of customs, as well as analyze health censuses.
“If Mexico wants to be at the forefront in many areas we need data processing capacity. It is a supercomputer for the people of Mexico, a public one, with a computing capacity that no other country in Latin America has.”
Sheinbaum said that higher education institutions, as well as the Center for Research and Innovation in Information and Communication Technologies (Infotec) and the Potosino Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (Ipicyt), are participating in the Coatlicue project.
Mexico’s supercomputer, which will be the largest in Latin America, will also be open to state and municipal agencies interested in participating, as well as the scientific community.
The Secretary of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation, Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez, explained that Coatlicue will be the main node of the cluster made up of various computers.
It will be linked to the National Supercomputing Cluster made up of universities and public research centers. Those include the National Polytechnic Institute, University of Sonora, Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Metropolitan Autonomous University and Center for Research and Advanced Studies.
“It allows for precise modeling and simulation of complex problems, as well as the development of artificial intelligence systems that involve large amounts of data.”
José Antonio Peña Merino, the General Director of the Agency for Digital Transformation and Telecommunications (ATDT), added that the Coatlicue project is part of the Mexico Plan as it links key areas such as technology, inclusive prosperity and cutting-edge scientific research.
He explained that a supercomputer is made up of thousands of processors like those found in home and office computers. In this case there will as many as 400,000 to process 314 quadrillion operations per second.
They will work simultaneously on solving a single problem by processing millions of data points solved by artificial intelligence algorithms.
He reported that the six billion peso Coatlicue supercomputer project will allow estimating the amount of surface and deep water, processing data on climate, agriculture, energy, mobility or telecommunications.
In this way, Mexico will work in a sovereign manner to solve public problems that require high computing capacity and cutting-edge scientific research. It will also offer capacity to support entrepreneurial projects and massive computing services to companies.
He emphasized that the supercomputer will be operated by Mexican engineers who will receive advanced computing training. Mexico will receive technical support from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the C-DAC Center for Advanced Computing Development in India.
The location of Coatlicue will be defined in January 2026 based on the availability of water resources, access to energy, seismic conditions and connectivity.
