HPC Ecosystem Development

Specific challenge: to develop a sustainable European HPC Ecosystem

Scope: proposals shall address one of the two following topics:

a) Coordination of the HPC strategy: The aim is to support the implementation of a common European HPC strategy through coordination of the activities of stakeholders such as the European Technology Platform for HPC (ETP4HPC), PRACE, application owners and users (including emerging HPC applications), the European exascale computing research community, the open source HPC community, related activities in other parts of H2020, etc. Proposals must include activities for promoting a joint community structuring and synchronisation as well as other non-research activities such as the development of Strategic Research Agenda for High Performance Computing (including the roadmap for exascale in Europe), the link to the H2020 Societal Challenges, the mapping and analysis of related national and international R&I programmes/activities/research agendas in HPC towards exascale, coordination with and participation in relevant international activities, etc. Specific actions for attracting young talent into HPC must be included.

b) Excellence in High Performance Computing Systems: The aim is to boost European research excellence on the key challenges towards the next generations of high-performance computing systems (such as energy efficiency, complexity, dependability and cutting across all levels – hardware, architectures, programming, applications), to ensure a durable integration of the relevant European research teams, to identify and promote best practices in curricula and training, to build and strengthen links to venture capital, and to promote entrepreneurship and industry take-up. Activities towards self-sustainability of the research integration on the longer-term must be included.

Expected impact:

•                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 competitive European technology 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 High Performance Computing systems.

Type of action: Coordination and Support Actions