July 22, 2019 — Cyprus joins 28 other European countries in this initiative to pool EU and national resources to build world-class high performance computing (HPC, also known as supercomputing) resources and data infrastructures in Europe.
The Joint Undertaking was launched in November 2018. In June 2019, it announced the selection of eight sites in eight participating countriesto host its first supercomputers: three pre-exascale machines (capable of 1017 operations per second) and five petascale machines (capable of 1016 operations per second). These machines will be available to Europeaan researchers, industry, public administrations and SMEs. They will be a strategic resource for Europe, helping users to find solutions to key scientific and societal challenges, such as medical research and personalised healthcare, climate modelling and weather forecasting, complex encryption technologies, and the production of more innovative goods and services. As part of this, the Joint Undertaking will also support the development of a European innovation ecosystem in supercomputing technologies, applications and skills, and will provide support for HPC Competence Centres in every participating country to share knowledge and good practice.
The budget of the Joint Undertaking is provided jointly by the EU and its participating countries. Supercomputing is a key priority in the Commission’s proposed Digital Europe programme for 2021-2027, which includes a proposal of €2.7 billion for HPC in Europe in this period.
Source: European Commission