PRACE 6th Implementation Phase Project

Project Information

PRACE-6IP

Grant agreement ID: 823767

DOI

10.3030/823767

Project closed

EC signature date 19 November 2018

Start date 1 May 2019

End date 31 December 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 29 379 125,50

EU contribution

€ 24 000 000,00

Coordinated by

FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM JULICH GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PRACE-6IP (PRACE 6th Implementation Phase Project)

Reporting period: 2020-11-01 to 2022-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing, was established in April 2010 as a permanent pan-European High Performance Computing service providing world-class systems for world-class science. Through funding agreements, PRACE secured funding from initially four (FR, DE, IT and ES) and since 2016, five European countries (with the addition of CHE) that committed to host leading-edge supercomputers at the highest performance level in Europe. In addition, from March 2017 all PRACE General Partners fund High Level Support Teams at the Hosting Sites in order to support PRACE users. HPC experts from 26 member states - funded in part by the PRACE-IP projects, enable users from academia and industry to ascertain research leadership and remain competitive in the global race. The objectives of PRACE-6IP were to build on and seamlessly continue the achievements of PRACE and start new innovative and collaborative activities proposed by the consortium such as:
-Provision of Tier-0 service based on excellence and innovation
-Support Tier-0 users and communities with novel software solutions
-Collaboration with Centres of Excellence on HPC applications, and other national and EU funded activities
-Support new user needs, new user communities, and new applications
-Support a functional European HPC Ecosystem
-Provide and develop tailored training and skills development programmes
-A sustainable governance and business model
-Support the strategic development of a rich HPC environment
-Coordination with European Technology Platform for HPC, the Centres of Excellence and EuroHPC JU Research and Innovation Advisory Groups
-International HPC cooperation policy
These activities were designed to increase Europe's research and innovation potential especially through: seamless and efficient Tier-0 services and a pan-European HPC ecosystem including national capabilities; promoting take-up by industry and special offers to SMEs; analysing new flexible business models for PRACE 2 and PRACE 3; proposing strategies for deployment of leadership systems; collaborating with the ETP4HPC, the new CoEs and other European and international organisations on future architectures, training, application support and policies.
PRACE-6IP was coordinated and managed by Forschungszentrum Jülich, had a budget of nearly 30 Mio € including an EC contribution of 24 Mio €. The project lifetime was of 44 months (May 2019 - December 2022).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

At the end of the PRACE-6IP project, 44 months after its start in May 2019, the project has achieved all milestones and completed its objectives:
- WP1: Management of the Contract: The management and governance structure of the project worked well. Four Contract Amendments were prepared by PMO and two Project Reviews were held (Dec 2020, Jan 2023).
- WP2: Sustainability and Development of the RI: The support concerning the development of PRACE 2 continued, with a focus on the collaboration between PRACE and EuroHPC. Peer Review support for the first EuroHPC calls was also provided.
- WP3: Communication, Dissemination, Outreach and Events: The PRACE website was re-designed. PRACE organised EuroHPC Summit Week including PRACEdays and was present at ISC and SC in 2019, 2021 and 2022. Outreach to industry was ramped up and a Go-to-Market Strategy “PRACE for Industry” was put in place.
- WP4: Training: The 14 PRACE Training Centres (PTCs) collectively delivered 396 courses that represent 1 045 training days (and a total of 35 910 participant-training-days). A total of 13 225 participants attended these courses. The SoHPC and International HPC Summer School were organised in 2019, 2021 and 2022.
- WP5: HPC Planning and Commissioning: HPC infrastructure workshop #10, #11 and #12 were held. Six market and technology watch reports were produced.
- WP6: Operational Services for the HPC Ecosystem: The common operational services, provided by PRACE, continued to be daily maintained, monitored and managed. Collaboration with other e-Infrastructure and CoEs was further developed. Prototype services included actions on Urgent Computing, lightweight virtualisation and federated AAI.
- WP7: Application Enabling and Support: The Application Enabling Services have been carried out, supporting a total of 21 preparatory projects. The PRACE DECI programme was successfully relaunched under PRACE-6IP. The SHAPE activity continued with further six calls.
- WP8: Forward-looking Software Solutions: The selection process of two calls for Forward-looking Software Solutions projects was successfully managed with 10 international proposals accepted.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The planned socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of PRACE-6IP cover several aspects:
1. Tier-0 Service Provision: The productivity and competitiveness of both European industry and academia will not only be maintained, but also strengthened.
2. Software implementation support: This work will improve software, the ability for codes to run on different architectures, the ability of new communities to use HPC systems and it will open up the PRACE RI to an increased number of new users and applications.
3. EU collaborations: The provision of enabling services for user communities (such as CoEs) and industry will improve software and will increase the number of academic and industrial users able to use the PRACE RI.
4. New user communities: Reaching out to new user communities and new industry – both SMEs and larger companies – and encouraging them to apply and use PRACE resources will have a positive economic impact.
5. Support to Tier-0 services: PRACE will provide support to EuroHPC access and Tier-0 services as well as build on national HPC capabilities which are necessary to support Tier-0 services and a functional European HPC ecosystem.
6. PRACE training events: They will improve the education and capabilities of Europe’s computational researchers and practitioners. Not only will it raise the number of research communities and industrial organisations which are able to use HPC, but it will also increase the productivity and competitiveness of current users.
7. PRACE governance: Helping PRACE maintain its financial stability towards it becoming a sustainable persistent European HPC infrastructure has a direct positive impact on contributing to the European HPC ecosystem.
8. PRACE European HPC roadmap: PRACE will carry out market studies, as well as study the strategy of non-European regions towards Exascale in close interaction with EuroHPC INFRAG and RIAG.
9. European HPC strategy: PRACE will work together with CoEs and PRACE users to define technical specifications to support the European HPC strategy in the specifications and operational preparation for the EuroHPC JU Petascale and pre-Exascale systems.
10. International cooperation: Through international cooperation with other infrastructure projects, we can identify best practices which can be implemented in Europe. Collaborations with non-European initiatives can help develop better services, better software, and bringing people together.
11. Project management: Ensuring the PRACE-6IP project activities run well, as expected and possibly beyond the scope of the description of work will positively impact on a strategic, economic, scientific, and European HPC ecosystem level, because given PRACE is the European HPC infrastructure, a well-run project will bring about all the benefits and positive impacts described above.

PRACE Logo

Group Photo PRACE-6IP AHM, Vienna, 5-6 May 2022