European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking

European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking

EuroHPC JU
Joint Undertaking overview
Formed	6 November 2018 (2018-11-06) (began operations)
Headquarters	Drosbach Building 12E rue Guillaume Kroll Gasperich, Luxembourg City, L-1882 Luxembourg 49°34′47″N 6°06′41″E / 49.579640°N 6.111510°E / 49.579640; 6.111510Coordinates: 49°34′47″N 6°06′41″E / 49.579640°N 6.111510°E / 49.579640; 6.111510
Joint Undertaking executive	Anders Dam Jensen, Executive Director
Key document	Council Regulation (EU) 2018/1488
Website	eurohpc-ju.europa.eu
Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap

The European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) is a public-private partnership in High Performance Computing (HPC), enabling the pooling of European Union (EU) -level resources with the resources of participating EU Member States and participating associated states of the Horizon 2020 programme, as well as private stakeholders. The Joint Undertaking has the twin stated aims of developing a pan-European supercomputing infrastructure, and supporting research and innovation activities. Located in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, the Joint Undertaking started operating in November 2018 and will remain operational until the end of 2026.

History[]

In June 2016, EU Member State leaders, meeting in the European Council called for greater coordination of EU efforts on high-performance computing as part of the EU's wider Digital Single Market strategy.^[1] The European Declaration on High-Performance Computing was launched in Rome in March 2017, initially signed by seven EU Member States (France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) committed to upgrading European computing power.^[2][3] In June 2018, the Council of the EU endorsed the European Commission’s proposal to establish the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking.^[4] On 3 July 2018, the European Parliament voted in favour of the Commission’s proposal to create a European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking.^[4] The proposal was formally adopted by the Council of the European Union on 28 September 2018.^[4]

Funding and objectives[]

The Joint Undertaking will have a budget of €1 billion, half from the EU budget and half from participating states. Additional resources to the value of over €400 million will come from private partners.^[5][6][7][8]

The EuroHPC JU has the twin objectives of;

• developing a pan-European supercomputing infrastructure: buying and deploying in the EU at least two supercomputers that will be among the top 5 in the world and at least two other that would today rank in the global top 25 for Europe's private and public users scientific and industrial users, for use in more than 800 scientific and industrial application fields;

• supporting research and innovation activities: developing a European supercomputing ecosystem, stimulating a technology supply industry, and making supercomputing resources in many application areas available to a large number of public and private users, including small and medium-sized enterprises.^[5][7]

Programme[]

In June 2019, the EuroHPC JU governing board selected 8 sites for supercomputing centres located in 8 different EU Member States to host the new high-performance computing machines. The hosting sites will be located in Sofia (Bulgaria), Ostrava (Czechia), Kajaani (Finland), Bologna (Italy), Bissen (Luxembourg), Minho (Portugal), Maribor (Slovenia), and Barcelona (Spain). 3 of the 8 sites will host precursor to exascale machines (capable of executing more than 150 Petaflops, or 150 million billion calculations per second) that will be in the global top 5 supercomputers, and 5 petascale machines (capable of executing at least 4 Petaflops, or 4 million billion operations per second).^[9][10][11]

The precursor to exascale systems are expected to provide 4-5 times more computing power than the current top supercomputing systems of the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE).^[9][11] Together with the petascale systems, they will double the supercomputing resources available for European-level use, meaning that many more users will have access to them.^[9][11] All the new supercomputers will be connected to the GEANT high-speed pan-European network, like the existing supercomputers that are part of PRACE.^[9][11]

Slovenia[]

The Slovenian "Vega" was the first of the EuroHPC JU supercomputers to be launched on 20 April 2021. The system, built by Atos, is located at the Institute of Information Science Maribor (IZUM) in Maribor, Slovenia. The Vega supercomputer was jointly financed by EuroHPC JU and the Institute of Information Science Maribor (IZUM) to the sum of €17.2 million euros. Vega has a stable performance of 6.9 petaflops and a peak performance of 10.1 petaflops.^[12][13]

Luxembourg[]

"Meluxina", Luxembourg's supercomputer was the second to be launched under the programme on 7 June 2021. Located at the LuxProvide data centre in Bissen, Luxembourg, the €30.4 million euros system was completed by Atos, with the Luxembourg government paying for two thirds of the associated costs, and the European Commission contributing the rest. Meluxina has a stable performance of 10 petaflops and a peak performance of 15 petaflops. The system is named after Melusine — a figure of Luxembourg and European folklore.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Finland[]

The LUMI supercomputer is currently under construction in Kajaani, Finland. The finished system will have a theoretical peak performance of 550 petaflops, which would make it one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.^[18] The HPE Cray EX supercomputer is being supplied by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE),^[19] with joint funding by EuroHPC and the LUMI Consortium.^[20] The first run of the CPU partition is scheduled for September 2021, with full operations including the GPU partition planned for early 2022.^[21]

Members[]

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking is composed of public and private members.

Public members[]

As of January 2020, public members of the Joint Undertaking include, the European Union (represented by the European Commission), 26 of the 27 EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden), and five non-EU associated states of the EU's Horizon 2020 programme (North Macedonia, Norway, Montenegro, Switzerland, and Turkey).^[22][23][24]

Other EU Member States or countries associated to Horizon 2020 are able to become members, provided that they accept the Statutes and financially contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the Joint Undertaking.^[23]

Observer states[]

Malta has been given "observer" status for the EuroHPC JU, allowing it to participate in deliberations of the Governing Board, but not receive a vote.^[22][23] The United Kingdom lost its observer status following its departure from the EU on 31 January 2020.^[25]

Private members[]

The Joint Undertaking's private members include the European Technology Platform for High Performance Computing (ETP4HPC) and the Big Data Value (BDVA) associations. Any legal entity established in a Member State or country associated to Horizon 2020 that supports research and innovation may apply to become a private member of the Joint Undertaking.^[23]

Governance[]

There are three bodies in the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking:

Governing board[]

The governing board is composed of representatives of the EU and participating states.^[26] The European Commission and each participating state appoint one representative in the Governing Board.^[26] Each representative may be accompanied by one expert.^[26] The EU holds 50% of the voting rights through the European Commission representative.^[26] The rest of the voting rights are distributed among the participating states according to the following lines;

• for the general administrative tasks of the Joint Undertaking, the voting rights of the participating states should be distributed equally among them;
• for the tasks corresponding to setting up the work plan for the acquisition of supercomputers, the selection of the hosting entity and the research and innovation activities of the Joint Undertaking, the voting rights of the participating states that are EU Member States are based on the principle of qualified majority. Participating states that are not EU Member States hold voting rights for the tasks corresponding to the research and innovation activities;
• for the tasks corresponding to the acquisition and operation of supercomputers, only those participating states and the EU that contribute resources to the procurement of petascale supercomputers and the total cost of ownership of pre-exascale supercomputers have voting rights proportional to their contribution.^[26]

Industrial and scientific advisory board[]

The industrial and scientific advisory board consists of two Groups which provide independent advice to the Governing Board;

• the Research and Innovation Advisory Group (RIAG) identifies key research priorities. It is composed of no more than 12 members, where no more than six are appointed by the Private Members, and no more than six are appointed by the Governing Board;
• the Infrastructure Advisory Group (INFRAG) provides advice on the acquisition and operation of the petascale and pre-exascale supercomputers. It is composed of no more than 12 members appointed by the Governing Board.^[26]

Executive director[]

The executive director is the chief executive responsible for day-to-day management of the Joint Undertaking. The position is currently held by Anders Dam Jensen.^[26]

Headquarters[]

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking is headquartered in the Drosbach Building, used by the European Commission, in the Luxembourg City quarter of Gasperich, Luxembourg.^[27]

See also[]

• Digital Single Market
• Horizon 2020
• HPC Europa
• Supercomputing in Europe
• LUMI supercomputer

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Luxembourg government video on EuroHPC