EU has laid foundations for the development of a globally competitive HPC Ecosystem. According to the EC’s policy document ‘High-Performance Computing: Europe’s place in a global race’, Europe is in a position to achieve global leadership.
The three most significant HPC bodies in Europe – PRACE, ETP4HPC and EESI – have come together within EXDCI, ‘European eXtreme Data and Computing Initiative’, to coordinate the strategy of the European HPC Ecosystem in order to achieve two main strategic goals:
• Development of a common European HPC Strategy - EXDCI will support the implementation of a European HPC strategy through the coordination of 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, and other related activities in other parts of H2020.
• Operating a synchronized European HPC Community – EXDCI will promote joint community structuring and synchronization as well as other non-research activities such as the development of the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) 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 programs/activities/research agendas in HPC towards exascale, coordination with and participation in relevant international activities, etc. Specific actions for attracting young talent into HPC are also included.
The project will consolidate the direction of the European technological HPC Ecosystem, in which the following objectives will be accomplished:
• Europe will achieve global leadership in both research and industrial areas in the supply, operation and use of HPC systems. This will be possible through roadmapping activities in the area of technology provision (Strategic Research Agenda, SRA) and applications (PRACE Scientific Case), analysing cross-cutting and break-through concepts to support the strategy definition and implementation process, as well as through support activities in the field of International Relations, and Education and Training.
• A process for contributing to the ETP4HPC Strategic Research Agenda by all stakeholders will be put in place and the implementation of the SRA will be monitored. As a separate task, the project will include the publication and update of the SRA (2015 and 2017), involving all stakeholders of the European Technology Value Chain (including technology and infrastructure providers, academic and industrial end-users, and software providers).
• Europe will develop an environment in which competitive technologies for building a wide range of next-generation extreme performance computing systems can be accomplished. The development and implementation of the SRA will result in a globally competitive research programme that will put Europe at the forefront of HPC technology development and secure European leadership in critical areas of this field.
• The European HPC Ecosystem will have processes that will facilitate structuring the efforts of stakeholders for implementing the European HPC strategy. The roadmapping, performance monitoring, and ‘think-tank’ activities of the project will be a structure in which all stakeholders will work together towards the agreed objectives.
• Cooperation in international endeavours on HPC software and systems towards exascale will be reinforced. As a separate task, this project will develop international relations with a focus on achieving exascale capabilities in synergy with other regions.
