Tier2 data center being built at NRNU MEPhI with assistance of MLIT JINR On 16 July 2026, a meeting with representatives of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (NRNU MEPhI), Head of the Informatization Management of the Digital Development Department Nikolay Romanov and Lead Engineer Artem Anikeev, took place at the Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies. The organization of a data center at MEPhI with active support from JINR, which could become part of the JINR distributed computing system, was discussed. The meeting was attended by MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov, his Deputies Nikolay Voytishin and Mikhail Plyashkevich, MLIT Chief Engineer Andrey Dolbilov, Chief Engineer of the Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex (MICC) Alexey Vorontsov, MLIT Senior Researcher and SPD Computing and Software Coordinator Danila Oleynik, Head of the Distributed Systems Sector Artem Petrosyan, Head of the Cloud Infrastructure Development and Maintenance Group Nikita Balashov, and 1st Category Software Engineer Alexey Golunov. Arkady Taranenko, Leading Researcher at NRNU MEPhI/VBLHEP JINR and Deputy Head of the MPD Collaboration, also participated in the meeting. During the discussion, the parties expressed mutual interest in developing the existing MEPhI computing center into a Tier2 data center, which would also serve as a distributed computing center for the experiments of the NICA megascience project. The organization of the existing MEPhI computing infrastructure was considered, and the possibilities of JINR's participation in its reorganization and qualitative development were discussed. It was pointed out that, in addition to the experiments at NICA and, primarily, the MPD experiment, the Tier2 center could serve as a site for a distributed data processing and storage system for other JINR experiments, including megascience ones (excluding foreign ones). Following the meeting, the parties also agreed to deploy on the basis of the JINR MICC the main long-term data storage system of the TAIGA experiment, in which, in addition to JINR and MEPhI, SINP MSU and API ISU take part. The main backup storage system of long-term data storage of the NEVOD experiment will be organized on the MICC, and as its resources enlarge, MEPhI will provide backup storage systems for storing data from the Baikal-GVD neutrino experiment. In all cases, it is assumed that data at JINR will be stored both on disk storage systems for immediate access and processing and in a tape library as a long-term backup. According to the meeting participants, a prototype of the data center at MEPhI, in terms of data storage systems, could be deployed by December 2026. This visit was the first practical step in implementing the MEPhI data center concept, elaborated during a meeting between MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov and MEPhI Vice-Rector Natalia Barbashina in early July. In addition, the possibilities of organizing joint scientific and technical work on developing a data model for the experiments at NICA, as well as the creation of a repository of generators for modeling the interaction of nuclei and elementary particles used in these experiments, were discussed. Another topic of the meeting between MLIT Director and MEPhI Vice-Rector was the organization of targeted scientific and educational courses on JINR research for the JINR basic department at MEPhI.
