HPC 2015-16 | European update
Possibly the most beautiful setting for a supercomputer in the world: The Barcelona Supercomputing Centre is also accessible across Europe thanks to Prace
deployment of HPC applications and services for academia, industry, and SMEs. Funding: On average, the net increase
in funding for HPC in Europe over the period 2010 - 2014 was extremely good for pursuing HPC leadership. Europe’s standing as a provider of high-end supercomputing resources advanced in both absolute and relative terms, narrowing the former wide gap with USA, China, and Japan. In June 2015, Europe hosted 18 of the world top 50 systems, including the Prace tier-0 supercomputers. However, significant additional investments
for procurement of supercomputers will be needed if Europe is to stay in the HPC race; the IDC13
study estimates that the public and
private investment required for Europe to achieve leadership by 2020 is of the order of an additional €500 million to €750 million a year, including the €1 billion-plus in funding needed to acquire pre-exascale and exascale supercomputers in globally competitive time frames. Member states and the Commission will need to find a way to coordinate and pool these investments. A contractual Public-Private Partnership on HPC was established in
(cPPP)14
2014 between the Commission and the ETP4HPC to support the development of HPC technologies and applications, with a contribution of €700 million from the
8
Commission during Horizon 2020 and matching funds from the private side. For the period 2014 – 2017, a substantial amount (€317 million) has already been committed in Horizon 2020 for HPC, including €224.4 million for the HPC cPPP; developing core technologies; establishing eight Centres of Excellence in HPC applications in 2015; plus support actions for HPC ecosystem
“Member states and the Commission will need to find a way to coordinate and pool these investments”
development. Tis is complemented with an additional €93 million from other parts of the programme: Prace; Public Procurement for Innovative HPC solutions (PPI); HPC platform for the Human Brain Project; the ICT Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs (I4MS) Initiative; and EU-Brazil collaboration in HPC. Industrial access to HPC: Over the
past few years, there has been considerable progress in this area. Several member states have continued or set up new HPC competence centres to make it easier for industry – and specifically SMEs – to access
HPC services, with supercomputing centres giving support and transferring expertise. However, greater outreach is needed to make HPC resources and soſtware available to industry, especially SMEs. Stronger support is also needed for disseminating innovative European HPC applications and codes, which are currently in limited use, to a much broader industrial base. Skills and training: A critical component
of the strategy is to develop a much larger workforce that is well educated and trained in HPC. Tere is still a shortage of qualified job applicants, as HPC competency is rarely required in university scientific and engineering curricula in Europe. Although there has been a lot of progress
in Europe over the past few years, there is much still to be considered if the HPC strategy is to be successful. European governance in HPC needs to
be strengthened through the participation of the main HPC stakeholders. Te European eXtreme Data and Computing Initiative (EXDCI) has been launched to implement the European HPC strategy and foster better outreach and communication, making sure that member states and key members of the HPC community in Europe are aware of the European Union’s HPC plans and activities Te technology building blocks that are
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