Exascale HPC ecosystem development

Proposals should address a single of the two following subtopics:

a) Coordination of the Exascale HPC strategy and International Collaboration: Proposals must include activities for promoting a joint community structuring and synchronisation; the further development and update of the Strategic Research Agenda for High Performance Computing as well as the application and applied mathematics exascale roadmaps; prepare the ground for targeted international research collaboration on specific aspects of the exascale challenges. Proposed actions should also seek to create synergies with other HPC related activities under H2020, in particular concerning the underlying basic technologies that are required for exascale computing (e.g. LEIT/Advanced Computing, LEIT/Photonics, and ECSEL (Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership)); and concerning the relevant research in applications, the progress of which critically relies on cutting-edge HPC systems (LEIT/Big-Data, LEIT/Cloud area as well as relevant research in applications emerging from the H2020 Societal Challenges in domains such as health (e.g. VPH initiative), genomics, climate change, energy, mobility and smart cities).

b) Excellence in Exascale Computing Systems: The focus should be in boosting European HPC academic research excellence in future exascale-class computing cutting across all levels – hardware, architectures, programming, applications – and including specific actions to better structure the European academic HPC research, create stronger links with HPC providers and HPC users, attract venture capital, promote entrepreneurship and foster industry take-up.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution between EUR 1 and 2 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

To develop a sustainable European exascale HPC Ecosystem.

• Strengthened European research and industrial leadership in the supply, operation and use of HPC systems.
• Contribution to the realisation of the ETP4HPC Strategic Research Agenda.
• Development of a competitive European ecosystem for building and exploiting a wide range of next-generation extreme performance computing systems.
• Structuring the efforts of stakeholders for implementing the European HPC strategy.
• Reinforced cooperation in international endeavours on HPC software and systems towards exascale.
• European Excellence in Exascale Computing systems.