Digital Single Market: the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking launches first calls for expressions of interest

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The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) launched its first calls for expressions of interest to select the sites that will host its first supercomputers by the end of 2020.

Two calls are now open: one for hosting entities for petascale supercomputers (with a performance level capable of executing at least 10¹⁵ operations per second, or 1 Petaflop), and one for hosting entities for precursor to exascale supercomputers (with a performance level capable of executing more than 150 Petaflops). The Joint Undertaking plans to acquire at least two of each kind of machine. A hosting entity is an existing national supercomputing centre located in a Member State that is participating in the Joint Undertaking. Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, said, “Deciding where Europe will host its most powerful petascale and precursor to exascale machines is only the first step in this great European initiative on high performance computing. Regardless of where users are located in Europe, these supercomputers will be used in more than 800 scientific and industrial application fields for the benefit of European citizens.” The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking was established last year with the aim of equipping the EU by the end of 2020 with a world-class supercomputing infrastructure, which will support the development of leading scientific, public sector and industrial applications in many domains, including personalised medicine, bio-engineering, weather forecasting and tackling climate change, discovering new materials and medicines, oil and gas exploration, designing new planes and cars, and smart cities. In addition to the above plans, the Joint Undertaking aims to acquire by 2022/23 exascale supercomputers, capable of 10¹⁸ operations per second, with at least one based on European HPC technology. More information about supercomputing can be found here, and more details about the call are available here.

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