Photos: Germany's Leibniz supercomputer

Argon is one of the most expensive gases you can use for fire control in a computer, and is believed to be the best in terms of suitability for emergency use around people and computer systems. These argon tanks are on hand for use in an emergency at the LRZ and, in themselves, represent a sizeable investment for the public sector that financed the enterprise.

While safety features such as deployment of argon in the event of a fire can be handled by automatic emergency systems, there is also the control centre for dealing manually with more complex emergencies. The control centre is unmanned and remains silent and dark except for the flickering of the nine main computer terminals. According to Professor Hegering, the last time the centre was used was during the power cuts that blacked out large swathes of Continental Europe in November 2006.