Transversal Centres of Excellence

This call builds upon and complements HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2023-COE-03-01 and HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2023-COE-01-01 and should associate where relevant with the following actions: HORIZON-JU-EUROHPC-2026-COE-LH-01-01, and HORIZON-JU-EUROHPC-2026-COE-LH-01-03.

Proposals must address one specific, well-defined and coherent transversal technical area that supports HPC application development. The focus will be on pooling European expertise and resources to provide technical assistance and services to HPC application developers, for example in one or several of the following cross-cutting domains (this list is not exhaustive and very different topics can be proposed, explaining in each case how diverse application communities will benefit from the proposed developments):

• Application profiling and performance optimization

• Application deployment and delivery

• Application portability

• Co-design and cooperation with HPC vendors and architects

• Automated testing, validation, integration and delivery of applications and code

• Code adaptation to computing continuum (HPC cloud, etc)

• Data processing, interoperability, reusability, and standardization

• Resilience and Fault tolerance

• Security and data privacy

• Heterogeneous, energy-efficient computing and system scalability

Transversal CoEs will offer advanced training on commonly used HPC development tools and technologies, with close collaboration with the AI Factories, EuroHPC Academy and existing EuroHPC training activities. Proposals are expected to contribute substantially to the EuroHPC’s training portfolio, ensuring accessibility and knowledge transfer across European HPC/AI communities.

Additionally, proposals should establish strong links with other initiatives under the EuroHPC Applications and Technologies pillar, including:

• Community CoEs

• Energy-efficient computing technologies

• Microprocessor and system software development

• Middleware solutions

• Common standards and metrics for HPC architectures Transversal CoEs will also play a crucial coordination role, bridging activities funded by EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) calls, particularly between application developers and domain-specific Community CoEs.

Transversal CoEs will also play a crucial coordination role, bridging activities funded by EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) calls, particularly between HPC software engineers and Lighthouse Code developers as well as domain-specific Community CoEs.

Additional requirements:

• Consortia should include a balanced composition of partners, integrating HPC specialists and domain experts with relevant technical expertise as appropriate.

• The participation of private sector entities is strongly encouraged to enhance industry collaboration and impact.

• Maximize Impact through Collaboration. Proposals should establish strong links with Community CoEs, Lighthouse Codes, and the Support Centre for HPC-powered AI Applications, ensuring mutual benefit between HPC code developers and real-world users, engage with national and EU-funded projects, fostering technology transfer and best practices at the European level, and ensure involvement in broader AI and HPC initiatives, including RISC-V, European Processor Initiative (EPI), and emerging AI Factories.

• While deviations are permissible if adequately justified, proposals should generally allocate at least 12 person months of resources for collaboration activities with other grants awarded under this call. The pre-allocated resources will be assigned to a collaboration task which will be defined after the evaluation together with EuroHPC JU and relevant other grants.