How Supercomputers will be at the core of our European Digital Decade
Not all heroes wear capes. Take supercomputers for example. From simulating drug molecules against the pandemic to better understanding neurological disorders, from predicting and monitoring the effects of global warming to designing innovative products and materials, supercomputers have become central in our everyday lives, even though they remain discreet in mainstream media.
Supercomputers have become central in our everyday lives
By being able to perform millions of billions – and soon billions of billions! – of operations per second, supercomputers can solve complex problems in hundreds of application areas, from medicine to energy, engineering, astrophysics, geology and climate research.
One example of this is the Commission’s new Destination Earth initiative. This initiative will use supercomputers to develop a digital replica of Earth and use it for monitoring it and providing the necessary evidence-based support for decision-making, helping Europe’s Green Deal transition.
Supercomputing – or HPC (for high performance computing) represents a major strategic challenge, both industrial, technological and scientific.
Supercomputers are one of the pillars of our digital autonomy. For Europe, the foundations of this technological autonomy are based on three inseparable elements: computing power, control over our data, and secure connectivity.
Supercomputers are the strongest link in a strategic value chain
Supercomputers are the strongest link in a strategic value chain, with processors upstream, and big data and the cloud downstream.
Thanks to the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking recently announced Europe has the ambition to become a world leader in high-performance computing and also already in quantum computing, the next technological frontier.
€8 billion in the next generation of supercomputers
The European Commission proposes to invest €8 billion in the next generation of supercomputers – a substantial increase compared to our current budget.
As a result, by 2021 the European Union will have three of the world's Top 5 computers in Italy, Finland and Spain, as well as five of the Top 50 computers. The super machines could be used in more than 800 European scientific, industrial and public sector applications.
Throughout Europe, research centers for supercomputer-related technologies will be financed. To ensure that all citizens benefit from the digital transformation, in line with our European values, these computing resources will be accessible to all users in Europe, including the public sector and industrial users, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), wherever they are located.
Preserve and strengthen our digital autonomy
In her State of the European Union address last Wednesday, President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the importance of supercomputers for this Europe's Digital Decade, from big data analysis and artificial intelligence to cloud computing technologies and cyber security.
I could not agree more. I am convinced that high performance computing is an area in which Europe can excel, not only to become a leader on the global technology scene, but also to preserve and strengthen its digital autonomy for the benefit of all Europeans.
Associate Professor at DSP group UNIUD
4 年"preserve and strengthen its digital autonomy" Do Europe has a digital autonomy to be preserved? Really? That's new to me.
Head of Solution Management - Northern Europe
4 年An impressive ambition to exponentially raise and add value to many sectors. A crucial step in advancing and democratising a smart, digital infrastructure which society will increasingly rely on.
Senior Data Scientist and ML Expert at NOAA/UMD-CICS
4 年HPC centers worldwide have faced one big challenge. This is the ever-increasing performance of uniprocessors thereby reducing dependence on a HPC center for simulations. This makes the justification of sustained funding of HPC centers over time difficult. Addition challenge comes from the increased performance of cloud architectures and the availability of high connectivity in the near future for inter-processor data transfer. But it would be harder and harder to justify overtime.