EuroHPC: Europe invests in supercomputers

The European Commission proposes to invest EUR 1 billion in building a world-class European supercomputers infrastructure.

The EU's contribution in EuroHPC will be around EUR 486 million under the current Multiannual Financial Framework, matched by a similar amount from Member States and associated countries. Overall, around EUR 1 billion of public funding would be invested by 2020, and private members of the initiative would also add in kind contributions.

The EuroHPC declaration, signed on 23 March 2017 at the Digital Day in Rome by seven Member States – France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. They were joined during 2017 by Belgium, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Greece and Croatia. These countries agreed to build a pan-European integrated exascale supercomputing infrastructure. Other Member States and associated countries are encouraged to sign the EuroHPC declaration.

The EuroHPC infrastructure will provide European industry and in particular small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a better access to supercomputers to develop innovative products. The use of High Performance Computing has a growing impact on industries and businesses by significantly reducing product design and production cycles, accelerating the design of new materials, minimising costs, increasing resource efficiency and shortening and optimising decision processes. For example, car production cycles can be reduced thanks to supercomputers from 60 months to 24 months.

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking will operate in 2019-2026. The planned infrastructure will be jointly owned and operated by its members consisting at first of the countries that have signed the EuroHPC declaration and private members from academia and industry. Other members can join this cooperation at any moment, provided their financial contribution.

More information: European Commission - Press Release