[emil0r]

Yes, so in that sense it's sharded. In another sense it's all one server, as you can warp between different systems and meet all the players there in the game. Everything is run on one giant server.

Not sure how it is now, but back in 2014-2016 you could inform them of big battles ahead of time for a specific system, at which point they would, in their own words, reinforce the node (moving that particular system to its own allocation of resources). This often was the difference between being able to duke it out in an epic space battle or wait for the system to load while everyone lagged to death.