European Commission to invest €1 billion in world-class European supercomputers

€486 million will be invested by the Commission under the current Multiannual Financial Framework whereas a similar amount will be invested by the Member States and associated countries. Overall, €1 billion will be invested by 2020. Private contributions will also add in to this public funding.

This investment is intended to help the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking acquire a new legal and funding structure, but also build and deploy across Europe a world-class High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure. It will also support a research and innovation programme to develop the technologies and hardware as well as the software that would run on these supercomputers.

The Joint Undertaking will aim to:

• Acquire and operate two world-class pre-exascale supercomputing machines and at least two mid-range supercomputing machines (capable of around 10¹⁶ calculations per second), and provide and manage access to these supercomputers to a wide range of public and private users starting from 2020;
• Support the development of European supercomputing technology including the first generation of European low-power microprocessor technology, and the co-design of European exascale machines, and to foster applications, skills development and a wider use of High-Performance Computing.

More importantly, the Commission highlights that HPC “is a critical tool for understanding and responding to major scientific and societal challenges, such as early detection and treatment of diseases or developing new therapies based on personalised and precision medicine”.

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking will operate from 2019 to 2026. The planned infrastructure will be jointly owned and operated by the countries that have signed the EuroHPC declaration and private members from academia and industry. Other members can join this cooperation at any moment, provided their financial contribution.

Background

On 23 March 2017, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain signed the EuroHPC Declaration. Since then, they have been joined by Belgium, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Greece and Croatia. These countries agreed to build a pan-European integrated exascale supercomputing infrastructure. Other Member States and associated countries are encouraged to sign the Declaration.

The press release published by the Commission is available here.