HPCwire: Eurpean Commission Announces Plan to Double HPC Investments

Since 1986 - Covering the Fastest Computers
in the World and the People Who Run Them

Translation Disclaimer

Subscribe | Sign In

Visit additional Tabor Communication Publications

Leading HPC
Solution Providers

February 15, 2012

Eurpean Commission Announces Plan to Double HPC Investments

BRUSSELS, Feb. 15 -- High Performance Computing (HPC) is critical for industries that rely on precision and speed, such as automotive and aviation, and the health sector. Access to rapid simulations carried out by ever-improving super computers can be the difference between life and death; between new jobs and profits or bankruptcy. Hospitals in Germany use HPC to avoid last-minute decisions during childbirth, while analysis of 3D brain imaging through HPC has allowed much earlier diagnosis of disease. HPC has enabled car makers to develop new vehicle platforms in 2 years rather than 5 years, saving the European car industry up to €40 billion. 97 % of the industrial companies that employ HPC consider it indispensable for their ability to innovate, compete and survive.

For these reasons, the Commission today sets out a plan for the EU to reverse its relative decline in HPC use and capabilities. Under this plan the EU will double its investment in HPC (from €630 million to €1.2 billion) and become home to computers that can perform 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (i.e. 1018) operations per second ("exa-scale"), before 2020. Half of the investment would be for development and training and for new centers of excellence, creating thousands of jobs.

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President responsible for the Digital Agenda, said: "High Performance Computing is a crucial enabler for European industry and for more jobs in Europe. It’s investments like HPC that deliver innovations improving daily life. We’ve got to invest smartly in this field because we cannot afford to leave it to our competitors.”

Specifically, the Commission's plan will substantially strengthen HPC in Europe by:

Strengthening PRACE as the leading pan-European HPC e-infrastructure, pooling national and EU funds to service academic and industrial research
Creating a workforce adequately trained in HPC
Stimulating the market for HPC in Europe by supporting more acquisitions of HPC systems and services and faster uptake of HPC by industry and SMEs
Encouraging Member States to jointly procure leading edge HPC systems in order to share costs
Establishing centers of excellence for software in scientific fields like energy, life-sciences and climate
Supporting the HPC Industry and research to maintain an independent and state-of-the-art EU supply chain through research and Innovation funding and pre-commercial procurement
Working to ensure that the EU HPC industry has fair access to global markets

Some interesting facts

A super computer can cost more than €100 million to build and €20 million to maintain each year.

The world’s largest super computers are more powerful than 130 000 laptops.

The world’s largest super computers can take up to 1,000 m2 space. Moreover, the building hosting the world's fastest HPC system takes up 10,500 m2 plus another 2,100 m2 for necessary chillers.

Europe’s most powerful supercomputers are the CURIE HPC system (№ 9 in the Top 500 supercomputer ranking) in France and the HERMES HPC system (№ 13 in Top 500) in Germany.

Background

Ensuring Europe maintains sufficient ICT infrastructures to support innovation is a priority of the Digital Agenda for Europe (see IP/10/581, MEMO/10/199 and MEMO/10/200).At a macroeconomic level, returns on investment in HPC are very high - the companies and countries that invest the most in HPC lead in science and economic success. Advances in the area of HPC such as new computing technologies, software, energy efficiency, storage applications, etc. feed into the broader ICT industry and the consumer mass market, becoming available in households within five years of their introduction in HPC. Conversely, advanced computing technologies developed for the consumer domain (e.g. energy-efficient chips, graphic cards processors) are increasingly used in HPC.

Securing high-quality jobs and growth in Europe requires building on the achievements of PRACE to further increase coordination between the actors in terms of governance and acquisition of supercomputing capacity.

-----

Source: EUROPA

Share Options

Subscribe

Subscribe to HPCwire

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Join the Discussion

Become a Registered User Today!

Registered Users Log in join the Discussion

RSS Feeds

Feeds by Topic

Feeds by Industry

Feeds by Content Type

Subscribe to All Content

All

May 23, 2012

May 22, 2012

May 21, 2012

May 18, 2012

May 17, 2012

May 16, 2012

May 15, 2012

May 14, 2012

May 11, 2012

Feature Articles

NVIDIA Works On CPU Co-Dependency Issues with Kepler GPU

NVIDIA is telling everyone that the GK110, its new Kepler GPU aimed at supercomputing, is all about improving performance per watt. But the other driving theme behind the new architecture is reducing the GPU's reliance on its CPU host. How well it accomplishes both these goals areas could determine the success of the new chip in high performance computing.
Read more...

OpenACC Starts to Gather Developer Mindshare

PGI, Cray, and CAPS enterprise are moving quickly to get their new OpenACC-supported compilers into the hands of GPGPU developers. At NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference this week, there was plenty of discussion around the new HPC accelerator framework, and all three OpenACC compiler makers, as well as NVIDIA, were talking up the technology.
Read more...

NVIDIA Launches Kepler Into HPC

NVIDIA has introduced its first Kepler-generation GPU product for high performance computing, and revealed some of the inner working of the new architecture. The announcement took place at the kickoff of the company's GPU Technology Conference taking place this week in San Jose, California.
Read more...