Manouba (People's Daily) - Tunisia and China on Thursday inaugurated a High Performance Computing (HPC) supercomputer at Tunisia's El Khawarizmi Computing Center, marking a new step in bilateral cooperation in science and technology.

Photos provided to People's Daily

The ceremony was attended by Tunisian Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Mondher Belaid and Chinese Ambassador to Tunisia Wan Li, along with local officials and academic representatives.

Wan said the project comes as part of implementing the strategic consensus reached between both states leaders during their summit meetings to bolster cooperation in emerging technologies, describing it as a milestone in scientific collaboration.

"China is willing to work together with Tunisian friends to deepen this cooperation for the well-being of both peoples," Wan said.

Belaid expressed profound gratitude to China's support, saying it reflects the excellence of friendship between both nations.

"This supercomputer will serve as a genuine lever for scientific research in key national priority sectors. It currently ranks third in Africa in terms of computing capacity, but in cooperation with our partners, we are determined to expand its capacity to make it number one on the continent, placing its services at the disposal of researchers across Africa and Southern Europe," Belaid told People's Daily.

This breakthrough is a continuation of an ongoing technological partnership between El Khawarizmi Center and leading Chinese technology powerhouses. Back in 2023, the center witnessed the launch of Tunisia's first Database Cloud in collaboration with Chinese tech giant Huawei.

As part of this sustained collaboration, Huawei provided Tunisia with an integrated digital distance-learning platform specialized in AI and Cloud Computing. Tunisian students and researchers benefit from free access to certified training programs, bolstering the skills of young Tunisian talents for the future knowledge economy.