Europe’s new supercomputing centres can start building high-performance computers

Earlier this year, eight supercomputing centres in eight EU countries were selected as hosting entities for the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking‘s (EuroHPC) first supercomputers. Today in Strasbourg, representatives of these centres are meeting to mark the signature of hosting agreements that will now allow the procurement process for the acquisition, installation and maintenance of the new supercomputers to be launched. The supercomputers are expected to become operational during the second half of 2020 for European users from academia, industry and the public sector. Meanwhile, European cooperation for building world-class supercomputers is expanding with North Macedonia joining the initiative as its 30^th participating country. Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, said: “These signatures mark a milestone in the Joint Undertaking’s activities, bringing us a step closer to our ambition of making Europe a global leader in high performance computing. By the end of next year, eight world-class supercomputers will help European researchers and industry, wherever they are in the EU, run applications that require large amounts of computing power to make significant advances in fighting climate change, designing new medicine, developing new materials, and many other areas. I also welcome North Macedonia as the Joint Undertaking’s 30^th member. I am delighted that, as part of its engagement with the EU’s Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans, the country has committed to investing in the Joint Undertaking and in its ambitious infrastructure and research objectives.” The procurement process for the new machines is due to launch by the end of this year. More information about the next steps for the EuroHPC can be found at 15:30 CET here and an overview is available here.