Inauguration
The Inria Saclay - Île-de-France research centre is expanding
The extension of the Alan Turing building, headquarters of the Inria Saclay - Île-de-France research center, was inaugurated on Tuesday 14 February 2017. After 2 years of construction, the building now extends over 12,000 m² and has more than 120 news offices, a FIT IoT-Lab wireless sensor platform or a 130-seat amphitheater.
Alongside Antoine Petit, chairman and CEO of Inria, and Bertrand Braunschweig, director of the Inria Saclay - Île-de-France centre, were Grégoire de Lasteyrie, regional councillor and mayor of Palaiseau, representing Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France region, Jacques Biot, president of the École polytechnique and Michel Bournat, president of the Paris-Saclay urban community who, during the speeches, were able to reiterate their commitment and support to our research centre.
"Like all of the Inria centres, the Saclay centre is situated within a leading ecosystem of teaching, research and innovation: that of the Université Paris-Saclay and the Ecole polytechnique campus, emphasises Bertrand Braunschweig.Our original model, based on the excellence of our project teams working in partnership with the best research establishments in the major challenges of the digital sciences, takes on real meaning in this context."
Inria has, indeed, rapidly become a major actor in the interfaces between the digital sciences and the other sciences on the Saclay plateau . So, after definitively setting up in the Alan Turing building in 2012, the construction of the extension quickly became necessary so that Inria can continue its development on the plateau by welcoming new researchers involved in multidisciplinary and international projects.
"The basis of what we are doing is scientific excellence, and at Inria we try to ensure that this excellence has an impact on the industrial and societal world, specifies Antoine Petit. The technologies that we are developing have applications in almost all sectors of the economy, but also in health, the environment, cybersecurity."
More than 5,000 m² of additional space for research partnerships
The extension is therefore immediately designed to welcome scientists from partner establishments to the building. To this end, shared spaces in the building are reserved for researchers working on the basis of projects as part of academic and / or industry partnerships.
In concrete terms, this extension represents 5,200 m² of additional space with, notably, a 130-seat amphitheatre, a showroom, a FIT IoT-Lab equipment of excellence, a Clusters room, 15 meeting rooms, a social and informal working area and over 120 offices to welcome administrative staff and members of the research teams of the École polytechnique Computer Science Laboratory and the Inria Saclay - Île-de-France research centre.
A ceremony under the sign of science and technology
After an initial institutional part of the ceremony, science took over the Alan Turing building:
- The Gamma3 team, specialising in the automatic generation of meshing, presented a video animation to showcase the inaugural gesture : a dynamic digital modeling of the extension of the Alan Turing building carried out in 80 million triangles, that you can watch (or watch again) here : The Gamma3 video.
- Then, numerous research teams and partners proposed demonstrations of their research project: Commands, Gamma3, MΞdisim, Petrus, the team of excellence ÉquipEx FIT IoT-Lab, the Joint Inria - Microsoft Research laboratory, the École polytechnique Computer Science Laboratory and the start-up Therapixel (cf. details below).
The demonstrations presented:
* Commands team: "Bocop", a set of software tools for the optimisation of dynamic systems. Applications include energy in particular (bioreactors, microgrids, hybrid vehicles). A collaboration is currently ongoing with the start-up Safety Line on the optimisation of aircraft trajectories.
* FIT IoT-Lab platform: The Inria Saclay – Île-de-France centre hosts one of the eight IoT-LAB platforms of the FIT equipment of excellence. This sensor network infrastructure is an ideal environment for testing the technologies of the Internet of Things. FIT IoT-LAB is continuing the initiative that began with the French network SensLab and is deployed at eight sites (Saclay, Grenoble, Lille, Paris, Strasbourg, Rennes, Lyon, Berlin).
* Gamma3 team: Digital simulations and adaptation of meshing. The team is working on the robustness and rapidity of algorithms (meshers and solvers) and is developing digital simulation software based on the adaptation of meshing, for example, for concrete problems in fluid mechanics.
* Joint Inria - Microsoft Research laboratory: HACL*,"High Assurance Crypto Library" is a cryptographic library written in F* and compiled towards C. The verification in F* guarantees the reliability of the source code, its functional correction as well as the absence of certain hidden channels. It is part of a wider project, Everest, to verify the different components of the HTTPS protocol.
* École polytechnique Computer Science Laboratory (LIX): Geo-indiscernibility or protection of privacy in localisation services. Localisation services that use geographical information to provide a service (mapping, points of interests, promotions, social networks...) are likely to be attacked and thereby reveal data that can make it possible to trace users and to deduce information relating to their home, work, religion, political opinions, etc. In order to protect the privacy of users, the Comete team is working on camouflage mechanisms (obfuscation) of localisation data that are both robust and effective, and minimise the impact on the services.
*MΞdisim team: "HeartVibes", cardiac modelling, seismocardiogram and connected applications. Originally developed for the physiological monitoring of astronauts, the seismocardiogram (SCG) is now reaching the general public, thanks to the sensors that are now available in most smartphones. The joint use of SCGs and simulated models on light devices will enable much more accurate cardiological monitoring, easily accessible to doctors and patients.
* Petrus team: "PlugDB", a secure personal information server capable of acquiring, storing, interrogating and sharing data under the control of the individual concerned, thanks to the principle of "privacy by design".
* Therapixel start-up: "Fluid", contact-less image navigation for the operating theatre. This software enables surgeons, during an operation, to display the medical images required on a screen without having to remove their gloves. The surgeon, using a very ergonomic gestural language, can quickly navigate in the patient's image file in the operating theatre, and have access to all of the data for the operation.
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inauguration of the extension to the Alan Turing building, headquarters of the Inria Saclay - Île-de-France research centre Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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From left to right : Grégoire de Lasteyrie, regional councillor ; Michel Bournat, president of the Paris-Saclay urban community and Jacques Biot, president of the École polytechnique Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Bertrand Braunschweig, director of the Inria Saclay - Île-de-France centre Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Amphitheatre Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Antoine Petit, CEO of Inria Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Grégoire de Lasteyrie, regional councillor Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Jacques Biot, president of the École polytechnique Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Michel Bournat, president of the Paris-Saclay urban community Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Uli Seher, BRS Architectes Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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From left to right : Michel Bournat, Grégoire de Lasteyrie, Antoine Petit, Jacques Biot and Bertrand Braunschweig Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Atrium Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Infine team – FIT IoT-Lab platform Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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M3disim team with Alexandre Laurin – Heart Vibes – cardiac modelling, seismocardiogram and connected applications Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Therapixel start-up Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Commands team with Pierre Martinon – Bocop – a set of software tools for the optimisation of dynamic systems Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Petrus team with Luc Bouganim and Riad Ladjel – PlugDB – a secure personal information server Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Atrium Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Joint Inria - Microsoft Research laboratory with Jean-Karim Zinzindohoué - Cryptographic library written in F* Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Infine team with Loic Dauphin – FIT IoT-Lab Inria / Bernard Lachaud
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Infine team and SED with Alexandre Abadie and Benoit Formet Inria / Bernard Lachaud
Keywords: Inauguration Extension Research team Research partnerships Inria Saclay - Île-de-France centre
These articles could interest you:
In the press
- Le Parisien, edition of 16 February - « The technologies of the future are born at Inria-Saclay » by Gérald Moruzzi
- TVFil78, edition of 15 February - Extract of report by Haussman Vwanderday and Mathilde Demilly
Or see the entirely video here
Key figures about the extension
- 5,200 m² of additional space
- A budget of 17.7 million Euros
- 900 m² of social and informal working areas
- 175 A8 nodes in the FIT IoT-Lab equipment of excellence
- 130 seats in the new amphitheatre
- More than 120 offices to welcome staff members, the Computer Science Laboratory of the École polytechnique and the Inria Saclay - Île-de-France research centre.
- 15 meeting rooms
- 2 cluster rooms with 28 bays, 150 virtual servers and 200 physical servers
Some key dates
- 2002 - Creation of Inria Futurs : This concerns the implementation of the sixth Inria research unit, with a view to preparing the potential creation of research units located in Bordeaux, Lille and Saclay.
- 2006 - Creation of the Digiteo Labs project : the construction of the first French research park devoted to Information and Communication Sciences and Technologies with three buildings aimed at scientific research. This project is carried out at the initiative of six scientific establishments from the Saclay plateau: the CEA, the CNRS, École polytechnique, Inria, Supélec and Université Paris-Sud 11.
- 2008 -Creation of the Inria Saclay – Île-de-France research centre : physically hosted by other partners, the centre brought together 25 research teams from its creation.
- 2012 - Delivery of Digiteo Labs 1 : the Inria Saclay – Île-de-France centre moves into its new premises in Saclay. The building, called the Alan Turing building in honour of the British mathematician, the centenary of whose birth was celebrated in 2012, now houses the administrative headquarters of the Inria Saclay - Île-de-France centre, the joint Inria - Microsoft Research laboratory and the École polytechnique Computer Science Laboratory (LIX).
- 2016 - Delivery of the building extension to enable the Inria Saclay – Île-de-France centre to continue to develop on the plateau, by welcoming administrative staff and researchers.
