Case Study: ALMA Observatory accelerates cosmic discoveries with Dell Technologies

ALMA Observatory uses Dell Technologies to unlock the secrets of our universe

ALMA Observatory, the $1.4 billion telescope array high in Chile’s Atacama Desert, captures extremely faint radio signals with 66 antennas and generates roughly 400 TB of data each year. Faced with the need for vast, scalable compute and reliable long-term storage—plus the operational challenges of a remote site and previously fragmented vendor support—ALMA standardized on Dell Technologies to support its correlator processing and central archive.

Dell Technologies implemented standardized infrastructure including high‑performance, scale‑out NAS and data protection solutions to preprocess, store and distribute ALMA’s datasets. The deployment lets ALMA add capacity quickly, speeds data processing so researchers get results sooner, and has delivered measurable reliability—no unexpected Central Archive downtime in two years—freeing staff to focus on science while securely preserving data for future generations.

ALMA Observatory

Cristobal Achermann

IT Project Manager