JoBee Pszczoła
Abstract
State of the Union: Commission sets out new ambitious mission to lead on supercomputing Brussels, 18 September 2020 Today, the Commission takes further steps in the Digital Decade agenda to strengthen Europe's digital sovereignty, as announced by President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union Address on Wednesday. The Commission has proposed a new Regulation for the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking to maintain and advance Europe's leading role in supercomputing and quantum computing. It will support research and innovation activities for new supercomputing technologies, systems and products, as well as foster the necessary skills to use the infrastructure and form the basis for a world-class ecosystem in Europe. The proposal would enable an investment of €8 billion in the next generation of supercomputers-a substantially larger budget compared to the current one. Building on Europe's success in next-generation high-performance computing, supercomputing will play a key role in Europe's path towards recovery. It has been identified as a strategic investment priority, and will underpin the entire digital strategy, from big data analytics and artificial intelligence to cloud technologies and cybersecurity. In addition, in a Recommendation also adopted today, the Commission calls on Member States to boost ultra-fast network connectivity and develop a joint approach to 5G rollout. Executive Vice-President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, said: "High-performance computing is an essential digital capacity for Europe. As we have seen in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, supercomputers are already assisting in the search of therapies, recognising and forecasting the infection spread, or supporting decision-making on containment measures. Data, in combination with artificial intelligence and supercomputers, are also a major asset in detecting patterns of ecosystems, helping us to mitigate changes in climate, and to work on solutions to avoid disasters and fight climate change. Our proposal today will foster increased investment in supercomputing infrastructure, in view of its enormous potential to improve quality of life, boost industrial competitiveness, and advance science." Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, added: "Together with data and connectivity, supercomputing is at the forefront of our digital sovereignty, encompassing industrial, technological and scientific challenges. Keeping up in the international technological race is a priority, and Europe has both the know-how and the political will to play a leading role. Our objective is to rapidly reach the next standard of computing with exascale computers-but also and foremost to already integrate quantum accelerators to develop hybrid machines and position Europe very early on this disruptive technology." The Regulation aims to update the previous Council Regulation that established the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking in October 2018. It will enable Europe to uphold a leading role in the technological race towards the next supercomputing frontier, notably: exascale supercomputers that will perform more than one billion billion (10 18) operations per second; quantum computers and hybrid computers, combining elements of quantum and classical computing, that will be able to perform operations that no supercomputer is currently capable of doing.
