1. overview of activities on High Performance Computing
Lisbon, 04 June 2017
Carlos Morais Pires
European Commission, DG CNECT
Disclaimer: the author’s views do not commit the European Commission

2. HPC in the DSM strategy: European Cloud Initiative
To address the potential of the data economy, and as part of its DSM Digitising European Industry strategy, the Commission proposed the European Cloud Initiative (ECI) - April 2016.
transition to a smart economy
next generation of products and services
innovation capacity in science and industry
1. European Open Science Cloud
data intensive science
2. European Data Infrastructure
underpinning digital science and economy
3. Widening access and building trust
enlarging the benefits to all sectors of activity

3. HPC as enabler of digital science and data economy
HPC is critical for the digitisation of industry and the data economy. It enables the transition to higher value products and services.
The ECI initiative calls for the creation of a leading-class integrated exascale supercomputing infrastructure to exploit the data revolution. The underlying vision is to establish in Europe an integrated world-class HPC and Big Data (BD) ecosystem based on European leadership in HPC, Cloud and Big Data technologies.
Placing Europe in the world's top 3 for HPC machines, connected and accessible throughout Europe provides investment opportunities on European technological excellence, digital infrastructures and knowhow.
Proposed to realise the European HPC strategy based on three main pillars:
research and innovation (components and HW/SW building blocks)
infrastructure development, acquisition and interconnections
applications, knowhow and skills

4. EuroHPC declaration signed in Rome (March 2017)
During the 60th Anniversary celebrations of the Treaty of Rome, (March 2017) a group of seven Member States signed the EuroHPC declaration. Member States agree to work together and with the Commission in the context of a multi-government agreement to deploy a pan-European integrated exascale supercomputing infrastructure. Available and accessible across the EU for scientific communities, public and private partners. Other Member States are being invited to sign the declaration to reinforce the high-level political engagement.
A first promising step in this direction:
A group of Member States presented plans to launch an Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on HPC and Big Data enabled applications.
Objective to support the development of new usages of HPC by the industry and to guarantee access to world-class HPC facilities for public and private research.
The proposed IPCEI offers the possibility to underpin large-scale pilots (e.g. Smart Energy, Smart Cities, Smart Mobility,…) by progressively opening the European Data Infrastructure to users from industry and the public sector in view to tackling the full European dimension.
No one can go alone in a connected economy. It has to be an European Ambition!

5. Ingredients of ECI/European HPC strategy
Two pre-exascale HPC machines followed by two full exascale HPC machines
One exascale machine based on European technology developments, particularly a competitive European low-power micro-processor to minimize technological dependencies
Interconnection and federation of national and European HPC resources (non-exascale and exascale machines, data centres and associated software and applications)
Provide HPC-based services to a wide range of users (scientific and industrial users including SMEs, and the public sector) for new and emerging data and compute-intensive applications
Large scale demonstration and testing, as we scale up the performance of the technology to reach the exascale
In areas spanning from scientific applications to health, space or industrial design and simulation
Development of European post-exascale technologies and procurement of European post-exascale machines

6. Proposed approach being discussed in EuroHPC WG
In order to realise the European HPC strategy it is proposed to follow a two- phased approach:
Ramp-up [2017 – 2018]: has as objectives to prepare a detailed implementation roadmap of the EuroHPC strategy, including among other, the definition and setup of a legal and financial instrument for an efficient implementation of the EuroHPC strategy; and, define and establish an initial operational governance structure for EuroHPC (ongoing discussions in the EuroHPC Working Group).
Implementation [2019–2025+]: Using the new legal and financial instrument for implementing the three pillars of the European HPC strategy.
A recent step was taken with Commission announcing the intention to propose, by end of 2017, a legal instrument that provides a procurement framework for an integrated exascale supercomputing and data infrastructure.

7. Areas for the EuroHPC implementation roadmap
Technical and operational requirements, including the development of competitive European technology and optimisation through co-design
unprecedented challenges to go from petascale to exascale
development of a competitive low-power European microprocessor
engage users in the development phases
Test-beds for HPC and big data applications
test-beds for scientific, industrial applications involving innovative SMEs
services of public interest in areas such as health, environment, or climate
Definition of appropriate legal and financial instruments
combination of different funding sources (i.e., European and national public funds and private investments)
set up "fit for purpose" legal and financial instrument
Procurement framework for HPC and data infrastructures
investment plan for the pre-exascale and exascale machines
definition of agents in charge of the procurement process and of the dialogue with funders and suppliers

8. implementation issues and funding
Until 2020
In the absence of legal instrument allowing efficient pooling of all HPC funds (public and private), the European HPC strategy will be implemented with existing means
EU funds using existing programme instruments (Horizon 2020 work programmes such as LEIT-ICT, FET, and Research-Infrastructures/e-Infrastructures as well as the Connecting Europe Facility)
~240 M€ allocated for supporting HPC strategy in work programme
~840 M€ foreseen for HPC strategy in work programme
National and private funds may complement
After 2020
HPC strategy goes beyond 2020:
Selection of architectures and technologies for the full exascale machines
Development of post-exascale technologies; procurement of post exascale machines
Upgrade whole ecosystem (interconnection, data storage etc.) at pan-European level

9. exascale? 'tá quase… obrigado pela atenção
carlos.morais-pires (at) ec.europa.eu