Greece joins EU efforts to cooperate on high-performance computing

Greece is the 12^th country to sign the European declaration on high-performance computing (HPC), joining the European effort to build the next generation of computing and data infrastructure. The EuroHPC declaration was launched in March 2017 and signed first by France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain during the Digital Day in Rome (see the press statement, speech and blog post by Vice-President Ansip). Four other countries have since joined this European initiative: Belgium in June, Slovenia in July, Bulgaria and Switzerland in October. Greece signed the EuroHPC declaration today in Athens. 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 Greece is now part of this ambitious European project. By joining forces, we can lead in both the production and use of HPC technology in Europe and open the way to new innovative applications to benefit people, such as designing and simulating new medical treatments.” The signatories of this declaration have committed to work together to establish a world-class high-performance computing ecosystem that will acquire and operate world-class supercomputers and also build key hardware, software tools and applications needed to run HPC technology. The aim is to have EU exascale supercomputers operational by 2022-2023. All other Member States and countries associated to Horizon 2020 research and innovation framework programme are encouraged to join forces and to sign the EuroHPC. More details are available here.