Oct. 6, 2023 — Following the 34th Governing Board meeting of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) held in Luxembourg, Israel became the 34th country joining the initiative to lead the way in European supercomputing.

The addition of Israel is a new step towards joining the forces of many different partners to strengthen Europe’s supercomputing capabilities, advance science and boost the innovation potential of enterprises.

The European Union (EU) and Israel have a long history of successful scientific and technological cooperation as Israel has been associated to the EU’s research and innovation framework programs since 1996. Israel joined Horizon Europe program on December 6, 2021.

“We warmly welcome Israel as the newest member of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. Israel’s expertise in technology and innovation will contribute in maintaining Europe as a global leader in HPC and Quantum Computing, said Anders Dam Jensen, executive director of the EuroHPC JU. “The inclusion of Israel in our EuroHPC family of 34 participating states conveys a strong message: European supercomputing is appealing and primed to lead the way into the future. ”

Shlomi Kofman, vice president the International Division and managing director of the Israel Innovation Authority (ISERD) added: “Israel is thrilled to join the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking and be an active and contributing member. As global innovative and technological leader,  Israeli priority activities are in line with the targets of the JU.  Therefore, Israel is committed to the collaborative activities in order to achieve the JU target to create and develop such supercomputing ecosystem that will lead the way for more HPC applications,  new technologies, and skills in the HPC area.”

Israel is joining six others EuroHPC JU participating states who have acceded to the Horizon Europe program and which are not members states of the European Union. These are Iceland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia and Turkey. They are all cooperating with the EU in delivering its mission to be strategically autonomous in European HPC and quantum computing and to develop of a world-class supercomputing and quantum computing ecosystem in Europe.

The EuroHPC JU is a legal and funding entity, created in 2018 and reviewed in 2021 by means of Council Regulation (EU) 2021/1173, with the mission to:

• Develop, deploy, extend and maintain in the EU a world-leading federated, secure and hyper-connected supercomputing, quantum computing, service and data infrastructure ecosystem.
• Support the development and uptake of demand-oriented and user-driven innovative and competitive supercomputing system based on a supply chain that will ensure components, technologies and knowledge limiting the risk of disruptions and the development of a wide range of applications optimised for these systems.
• Widen the use of that supercomputing infrastructure to a large number of public and private users and support the development of key HPC skills for European science and industry.

In order to equip Europe with a world-leading supercomputing infrastructure, the EuroHPC JU has already procured nine supercomputers, located across Europe:  LUMI in Finland, LEONARDO in Italy,  MareNostrum5 in Spain, Vega in Slovenia, MeluXina in Luxembourg, Discoverer in Bulgaria, Karolina in the Czech Republic, Deucalion in Portugal and earlier this week, JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer, in Germany.

The deployment of an additional supercomputer is underway in Greece: Daedalus, with plans for more, including a second EuroHPC exascale supercomputer, to be hosted by the Jules Verne consortium in France and several mid-range supercomputers across Europe.

In addition, six EuroHPC quantum computers are under deployment in Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. These revolutionary quantum computers will allow European users to explore a variety of quantum technologies coupled to leading supercomputers.

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Source: EuroHPC JU