Financed through the EU’s research and innovation programme Horizon 2020 via the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, the EuroCC European collaborative project is aimed at establishing national HPC competence centres.
An ambitious European programme
The EuroCC project has the ambition to create single national competence centres (NCCs) in the field of high performance computing (HPC), i.e. high performance data analytics (HPDA) and HPC-based artificial intelligence (AI) in each of the 33 participating countries.
To achieve this goal, all participating countries will follow a similar approach. The NCCs are in charge of auditing the available expertise and identifying the knowledge gaps in their countries.
Some countries are more mature and have several HPC infrastructures in use by both academia and industry, while others are less mature and/or have HPC infrastructure that is mainly used by academia.
In this context, the NCCs position themselves as the coordinators of HPC-related activities in their home countries with the mission to expand HPC skills and usage at their national level.
The NCCs are also the gateway to the European network of NCCs. This network spurs interaction and exchange of expertise among NCCs in order to meet the needs of HPC users in the best way possible in their countries and around Europe. The improved international dialogue will lead to the identification of new kinds of synergies and to regional collaborations between NCCs in which resources are shared to address complementary needs.
National strategic importance
The Luxembourg government has recognised the importance of ICT and digitalisation as catalysts for the development of the priorities set in the country’s data-driven innovation strategy. Therefore, the creation of a national HPC Competence Centre is central for ensuring wide access to HPC capacities that are fundamental to unleash the development of tomorrow’s economy in Luxembourg.
In fact, the adoption of HPC can significantly help addressing big scientific, economic and societal challenges of today, from climate modelling to flow dynamics simulation, answering needs across specific domains and business sectors, from healthcare to financial services.
HPC is a unique tool which produces knowledge and innovation and can contribute to generating business value from data.
The NCC Luxembourg can support your business to adopt HPC and benefit from the numerous advantages that this powerful tool offers in terms of cost savings, reduced time to market, and possibility to tackle larger problems compared to common desk computers. The NCC Luxembourg is the one-stop-shop for all HPC-related support services. It offers business support to set up innovative HPC-based projects, enables HPC skills development in Luxembourg at all stages and in different fields, and is the gateway to cross-border collaborations and European HPC initiatives.
The NCC Luxembourg tightly collaborates with the Luxembourg Digital Innovation Hub (L-DIH) in order to disseminate HPC-related technologies. The L-DIH actively contributes to raising awareness of the HPC toolbox available to businesses when embarking on digital innovation projects. The NCC Luxembourg underpins the L-DIH mission to support industrial SMEs with their digital transition and become Industry 4.0 champions.
The participation in the EuroCC project will accelerate the setting up in Luxembourg of the National Competence Centre focused on HPC and associated technologies. The NCC Luxembourg’s mission is to encourage the democratisation and uptake of HPC technologies by industry and especially SMEs, academia, public administration, and the wider society.
By developing closer collaboration between industry and research, the NCC Luxembourg wants to boost capacity building and grow a strong national HPC ecosystem with a special attention to strategic sectors prioritised by the government.
Photo: University of Luxembourg