Croatia joins EU efforts to build the next generation of supercomputers

Croatia is the 13^th country to sign the European declaration on high-performance computing (HPC). The initiative aims at developing European high-performance computers that would rank among the world’s top three by 2022-2023. Croatian Minister for Science and Education Blaženka Divjak signed the declaration this morning in BrusselswithRoberto Viola, Director General of European Commission’s DG CONNECT. HPC is a strategic resource for the future of EU’s scientific leadership and industrial competitiveness. Vice-President Ansip, responsible for the Digital Single Market, and Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society welcome this important step for EuroHPC: “We are very pleased that Croatia joins this ambitious European project. Supercomputers are increasingly used to solve complex societal challenges that need large computational efforts, such as DNA sequencing, early detection and treatment of diseases, climate modelling and cryptography. We encourage other Member States and countries associated to the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to participate too and sign the declaration”.  The EuroHPC declaration was originally launched in March 2017 during the Digital Day and signed by France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Five other countries have since joined the initiative: Belgium in June, Slovenia in July, Bulgaria and Switzerland in October and Greece in November. The signatories of this declaration have committed to work together to establish a world-class high-performance computing ecosystem capable of at least 10¹⁸ calculations per second (so-called exascale computers). You can find more information here.