Building a strong high-performance computing (HPC) sector in Europe involves much more than simply setting up supercomputers. It's a complex endeavour in which each activity enhances and reinforces the others, creating a comprehensive and dynamic ecosystem. Here's how the activities under the EuroHPC JU initiative interconnect to elevate the entire European HPC landscape, which is strengthening the development of both public and private sectors, thus creating new innovations solutions and creating new jobs. 

First of all, the legal basis for the EuroHPC JU, the European Council Regulation which establishes the EuroHPC mission, provides for seven technology pillars of activity, around which all the EuroHPC initiatives revolve. These seven pillars are the following: 

• Infrastructure Pillar: This pillar is all about building the backbone of our high-tech computing world: supercomputers, quantum computers, and data infrastructure that's not just powerful, but also secure and hyper-connected. This pillar is not just about building the infrastructure, but also promoting its usage, so that it is put to good use. 
• Federation Pillar: EuroHPC JU will join together all the EuroHPC supercomputers, quantum computers, and data resources across the EU. It will build a tailor-made platform ensuring easier access for researchers, businesses (including small and medium-sized enterprises), and the public sector. 
• Technology Pillar: This pillar involves developing European cutting-edge novel hardware components and their respective software stack and integrating them into new computing systems to strengthen Europe's strategic independence in this sector. 
• Applications Pillar: This pillar is about developing and optimising applications and codes that can harness the power of our supercomputers. EuroHPC JU is supporting scientists, industries, and the public sector to create software that can tackle complex problems, from scientific simulations to big data analytics. 
• Usage and Skills Pillar: A strong European HPC industry is not just about building technology; it’s also the community around it. This pillar focuses on developing the skills and knowledge needed to make the most of supercomputing and quantum computing by supporting national competence centres and investing in education and training initiatives, which will help foster a skilled workforce that can lead Europe's digital transformation.
• International Cooperation Pillar: EuroHPC JU extends its reach beyond Europe through this pillar. This pillar enables EuroHPC JU to collaborate with global partners to address shared challenges through supercomputing. This approach allows Europe to contribute to solving global issues while fostering close ties with international partners.
• Artificial Intelligence Factory Pillar: Last but not least, EuroHPC JU will develop a tailor-made environment for AI innovation through this pillar. Ensuring that existing supercomputers are upgraded for AI capabilities and building new resources tailored to tackle AI problems, ensuring that Europe is at the forefront of the AI revolution. 

While each activity undertaken by the EuroHPC JU fits into one of these seven pillars, no initiative can exist in isolation. Each call, contract, or procurement is designed with the broader European supercomputing ecosystem in mind, ensuring that each action fosters synergy in order to benefit the entire European HPC landscape. 

Developing Core Technology

The ultimate goal is that a EuroHPC supercomputer is built with world-leading technology designed and developed in European R&D initiatives.  Chips and components form the fundamental building blocks of supercomputing technology.

By funding projects to develop European-designed technology, EuroHPC JU is supporting research, innovation, and industry, and is aiming to reduce Europe’s dependence on foreign technology, fostering technological sovereignty and boosting the local ecosystem. While Europe is still some way off the envisaged level of technological autonomy, we are already starting to see results:

In the European Processor Initiative (EPI), the Rhea chip has been developed, and is set to power the upcoming EuroHPC exascale supercomputer JUPITER. Additionally, EPI has also produced the EPAC1.5, a collection of RISC-V based accelerators designed to push the boundaries of acceleration technologies. This innovative test-chip showcases three distinct approaches to acceleration with a general purpose CPU with a dedicated vector unit, a many-core stencil/machine learning accelerator and a general Purpose CPU supporting variable precision. In the EUPILOT project, progressively more complex chips in progressively more advanced nodes have been developed, with increasingly more European-sourced technology. 

Building Infrastructure

But we are in hurry and Europe needs supercomputing capacity now.  EuroHPC JU is not wasting any time in providing European researchers with a first-rate infrastructure today and has already built eight supercomputers, with a ninth currently being installed and several further systems coming soon. These supercomputers, based on diverse technologies and architectures, cater to a broad spectrum of applications—from scientific research to industrial processes. This infrastructure ensures that a wide range of computational needs can be met efficiently.

The infrastructure that EuroHPC JU is building is also truly world-class. Three of the EuroHPC’s supercomputers are ranked in the top 10 of the TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, ensuring the highest calibre of tools for European research and innovation.

Ensuring Seamless Operation

Building powerful supercomputers is only part of the equation. Ensuring they operate efficiently and sustainably requires sophisticated middleware. EuroHPC JU invests in developing of middleware solutions that increase the supercomputer’s performance and enhance its energy efficiency. Middleware acts as the glue that binds the hardware together, optimising operations and facilitating seamless integration into various computational tasks, similar to operating systems such as Linux, Windows, or iOS do for our own personal devices.

EuroHPC projects such as IO-SEA, which focuses on system storage, or DEEP-SEA, which aims to develop innovative network interconnect solutions for upcoming Exascale systems, or REGALE, which is designing solutions for optimised resource utilisation, all respond to this need for well-designed and tailored middleware. 

Enabling Applications

Once the infrastructure is in place and running smoothly, the focus shifts to the utilisation of the machines. While it’s a good news story to have three European supercomputers in the top of the world rankings, this alone does not ensure proper exploitation of those machines. EuroHPC JU supports the development and optimisation of applications and codes tailored to harness the power of supercomputers. This spans a multitude of industries, including aeronautical engineering, climate modelling, and artificial intelligence. 

By developing specialised software, EuroHPC JU ensures that supercomputers are not just powerful, but also useful in solving complex problems across different sectors.

EuroHPC JU also prioritises making research outcomes open-source whenever possible, promoting widespread access to cutting-edge solutions and encouraging ongoing innovation within the community. This approach ensures that advancements made within EuroHPC-funded projects continue to benefit the broader European research and technology sectors.

Managing Access

Since the first EuroHPC supercomputer went online in 2021, over 250 projects have accessed these machines, all free of charge, to advance European research. From benchmarking to extreme scale access, the five different EuroHPC access modes ensure European researchers and industry are receiving access and computing time appropriate to the scale of their projects. This access empowers a wide range of users, from small enterprises to large research institutions, all across Europe, to leverage high-performance computing in their work, undertaking groundbreaking research on a wide range of topics, such as how to improve Radiotherapy dosage for optimal outcomes, weather and climate change research, digital twins, or the long-term safety of nuclear waste storage.

Investing in People

Even the most advanced technology is ineffective without a skilled workforce to operate it and exploit it. EuroHPC JU places significant emphasis on developing a highly trained workforce capable of maximising the potential of HPC technology for European innovation and competitiveness. Through EuroHPC JU’s Master's programme, summer schools, various support-focused initiatives such as EuroCC and Castiel, and advanced training programmes provided by Centres of Excellence for HPC applications, EuroHPC JU is investing in building European expertise in multiple areas and communities. This human capital is crucial for driving research and leveraging EuroHPC JU’s HPC infrastructure to its fullest potential.

Fostering Collaboration

The EuroHPC mission focuses on boosting the European supercomputing ecosystem. While the EuroHPC JU is an EU body, membership of the Joint Undertaking spans the whole European continent, including not only the 27 EU Member States, but also other participating states from across Europe and even beyond. 

Beyond the European collaboration which has been achieved to date, a crucial component of EuroHPC JU’s strategy involves collaborating with international partners to address shared challenges in supercomputing.

The HANAMI project,  the first of these collaborations, unites top research teams from Europe and Japan to optimise HPC applications in climate simulation, materials research, and biomedicine, and share access to EuroHPC and Japanese systems. A similar initiative involving collaboration between Europe and India is underway. These collaborations leverage advanced supercomputing systems and expertise in both regions to push the boundaries of scientific research, enhancing both European and global scientific advancement.

Coming Up Next

The EuroHPC JU’s Regulation was recently amended to include AI-related HPC activities. Specifically, EuroHPC JU has been tasked with setting up “AI Factories” which will form an AI-oriented supercomputing infrastructure and support the development of trustworthy and ethical AI. This specialised infrastructure will enable startups, research institutions, and established businesses to develop, test, and apply AI models to critical areas such as healthcare and climate change. 

Quantum computing is also part of the EuroHPC JU mission. While in many ways, the journey towards exploiting quantum computing technology is still in its early days, EuroHPC JU is taking strides to support Europe’s uptake of this novel, promising, and yet still somewhat mystical technology. With the procurement of a diverse set of quantum computers across Europe and projects such as HPCQS, which integrates quantum simulators into existing supercomputers, the EuroHPC JU aims to place Europe in a leading position to exploit this technology.

Finally, EuroHPC JU will also invest in a European federation network of supercomputing services to further amplify the impact of individual machines. Ensuring that the EuroHPC supercomputers, quantum computers, and data resources across the EU are interconnected will facilitate easier access, better resource allocation, and more efficient utilisation of the available infrastructure.

A Comprehensive, Impactful Ecosystem

Each pillar of the EuroHPC JU’s strategy are interlinked and enhances the others, creating a holistic approach which boosts the entire European HPC ecosystem. By developing core technologies and building robust supercomputing infrastructure, EuroHPC JU lays a solid foundation. Middleware development ensures these systems run efficiently, while optimised applications make them practically useful. A skilled workforce maximises their potential, and a federated network ensures seamless connectivity and resource sharing. International cooperation and a focus on AI will further elevate Europe's position on the global HPC stage. 

Four years into our mission, the EuroHPC JU has nearly 50 research projects running or completed, over 250 projects utilising our supercomputers, nine supercomputers procured, over 1000 people employed by projects funded by EuroHPC JU, and countless behind-the-scenes initiatives that collectively enhance the European HPC ecosystem. By considering the broader context with every action, we create a vibrant, innovative, and competitive supercomputing landscape that have made Europe a global leader in supercomputing.