LUMI supercomputer boosting environmentally friendly enzyme development
Enzymes are proteins that function as biological catalysts. That is, they accelerate chemical reactions in living organisms. Enzymes are essential to life, as they are a part of many vital physiological processes, such as digestion, metabolism, and cell function. AB Enzymes develops enzymes that help improve production animal digestion for better nutrient utilisation, among other things. This reduces the environmental load, as these nutrients don’t get released into the environment.
AB Enzymes is an international biotech business that specialises in developing, producing and supplying industrial enzyme solutions. Its product range stretches from food-grade enzymes to feed and industrial enzyme solutions. AB Enzymes is an established name in the enzyme market, with its eyes fixed on the future through fresh ideas and methods.
Exploring new horizons in product development with virtual microscopy
AB Enzymes’ modern production plant in Rajamäki, Finland works on wide-ranging research and development into enzymes. They design everything from enzymes and their production processes, from the first embryo of an idea into pilot-level fermenting and post-processing. Senior Research Scientist Joni Vuorio is one of the experts at Rajamäki. He specialises in computational enzyme design and molecular dynamics simulations, which he introduced into the product development tool set.
“Many industrial processes operate under extreme conditions, such as very high temperatures, which means that industrial enzymes must withstand and function under these conditions. Natural enzymes rarely have properties that make them useful on their own – we need genetic engineering to modify them for specific applications,” says Vuorio.
“Our engineers study the function of proteins, and usually that requires us to understand the structure and dynamics of the enzyme and its catalytic reaction, which in turn requires looking at the nanoscale. There are not many methods for doing this.”
Laboratory results are often indirect and may not fully expose the key mechanisms by which a molecule functions. Molecular dynamics simulation, which you could think of as a virtual microscope, if an excellent method for developing experimental results further. It is what makes it possible to study dynamic phenomena on the nano level. To function, it needs computing power.
Try&Buy project – easy gateway to the world of high-performance computing
Vuorio has been working on CSC – IT Center for Science´s national supercomputers since 2012. He was previously part of Professor Ilpo Vattulainen research group at the University of Helsinki, where he studied membrane proteins, among other things. National supercomputers are usually reserved for universities and national research institutes. So it was a stroke of luck that the arrival of the LUMI supercomputer in Finland enabled high performance computing commercial use in 2022.
“I seized the opportunity right away,” says Vuorio. “We do have computing resources of our own, but molecular dynamics simulations require an immense amount of them. My previous experiences with supercomputers and the vast computing resources of the LUMI supercomputer were a fantastic opportunity to make use of these simulations in enzyme development. GPU computing capacity is particularly effective at molecular dynamics simulations, allowing us to significantly accelerate our development efforts. It’s a clear advantage that we don’t have to buy the simulations as a service, but that we can run them on LUMI on our own. This saves us both time and money.”
AB Enzymes started using LUMI under a free-of-charge “Try&Buy” project, which is an opportunity to test the supercomputer’s suitability for business purposes before deciding on an investment.
“The Try&Buy project included two user accounts, CPU, GPU and data storage resources for testing, and most importantly, free expert support for project deployment,” says Jussi Auvinen, the CSC project manager responsible for the AB Enzymes account. “After a 3–6 month test project, the business can keep using the system with a computing service agreement or stop using it after the free test phase.”
AB Enzymes’ Try&Buy project was successful. Vuorio’s experience working with CSC was invaluable – the open-source applications were compatible, expert support was available when needed, and the LUMI documentation was very useful. In addition, CSC has direct access to the GROMACS and PMX developers through the BioExcel-3 project, which ensured the best possible support. AB Enzymes has remained a LUMI user since its Try&Buy project.
Computing power injects speed and quality in product development
“LUMI’s competitive pricing and effectiveness make computational testing possible. Our laboratory tests fail less when we can first sift through the molecules on the supercomputer,” Vuorio sums up.
Computation-as-a-service has a clear cost. Customers can purchase a specified amount of capacity that is only spent on the submitted batches without being tied to a deadline. This makes it easy to keep up with the usage and costs.
“We didn’t buy capacity in LUMI for any particular project – it has become a part of our enzyme development toolbox,” says Vuorio. “We use LUMI for enzyme modelling and molecular dynamics simulations. What we are trying to do is to understand the enzyme-substrate interactions and to optimise enzyme performance in industrial conditions.”
LUMI has introduced new dimensions, speed, power and agility, in AB Enzymes’ design and production development and a better understanding of molecules, which reduces the resources spent on laboratory tests. All of this will create higher quality, more environmentally friendly and effective enzyme products for their customers.
Sustainable development is a core value
Environmental friendliness and sustainable development are core values for AB Enzymes, which makes LUMI an excellent addition to their toolbox.
Datacentre energy consumption has been a hot topic recently, but LUMI is one of the most environmentally friendly supercomputers in the world. LUMI offers world-class ecological sustainability and cost-effectiveness. LUMI points the direction for the European ICT sector in achieving the EU’s ambitious climate protection and green transition goals. Minimized environmental loading, energy consumption that saves taxpayers’ money and use of waste heat from cooling the computer in city of Kajaani’s district heating network make LUMI an outstanding example of a data centre that supports climate protection and the green transition.
Furthermore, LUMI is intended only for research, development and innovation use. It´s computing power is used on climate change models, pharmaceutical research, and applications for artificial intelligence, among others. Its successor will be the LUMI-AI supercomputer, which will be optimised for AI. LUMI-AI is expected to start up in 2027.
Next up – making use of AI
Using AI to help with enzyme design is also interesting to Vuorio, and his team is in constant discussion on how to make wider use of AI in their research.
To support AI development, one of Europe’s first AI factories, LUMI AI Factory, was launched in spring 2025.
“In addition to computing capacity, we also provide AI expertise, training and data that businesses can use to develop top-class AI models, tools and applications,” says Aleksi Kallio, Director of LUMI AI Factory Services. ”We also aim to help businesses to find the AI solutions for their business models in the LUMI AI Factory toolbox.”
Photo: AB Enzymes and Adobe Stock.
Dan Still
Dan Still works with building industrial partnerships and networks to boost industrial HPC use.