European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking Explained

European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking
Native Name:	EuroHPC JU
Type:	Joint Undertaking
Formed:	(began operations)
Coordinates:	49.5796°N 6.1115°W
Chief1 Name:	Anders Dam Jensen
Chief1 Position:	Executive Director
Keydocument1:	Council Regulation (EU) 2018/1488
Embed:	Length Km: 3.0

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–level resources with the resources of participating EU Member States and participating associated states of the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes, 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 under the control of the European Commission and became autonomous in 2020.

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. The proposal was formally adopted by the Council of the European Union on 28 September 2018.

The Executive Director was appointed on 15 May 2020 and the Joint Undertaking became autonomous from the European Commission on 23 September 2020.^[5]

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking was reviewed by means of Council Regulation (EU) 2021/1173.^[6]

Funding and objectives

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking is jointly funded by its members with a budget of around €7 billion for the period 2021-2027.

Most of this funding comes from the current EU long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF 2021-2027) with a contribution of €3 billion, distributed as follows:

• €1,9 billion from the Digital Europe Programme (DEP) to support the acquisition, deployment, upgrading and operation of the infrastructures, the federation of supercomputing services, and the widening of HPC usage and skills;
• €900 million from Horizon Europe (H-E) to support research and innovation activities for developing a world-class, competitive and innovative supercomputing ecosystem across Europe;
• €200 million from Connecting Europe Facility (CEF-2) to improve the interconnection of HPC, quantum computing, and data resources, as well as the interconnection with the Union’s common European data spaces and secure cloud infrastructures.

The EU contribution is matched by a similar amount from the participating countries. Additionally, private members are contributing an amount of €900 million.^[7]

The Joint Undertaking provides financial support in the form of procurement or research and innovation grants to participants following open and competitive calls.

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.^{[8] [9]}

Supercomputers

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 (Czech Republic), 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).^{[10] [11] [12]}

In 2022, the EuroHPC governing board selected a further 5 sites to host a new fleet of EuroHPC supercomputers, including the first European exascale supercomputer to be located in Germany. ^[13]

KAROLINA

KAROLINA was installed in 2021 at IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center in the Czech Republic. In the TOP500 list, which evaluates supercomputers in terms of their performance, it ranked 69th worldwide, 19th in Europe, and in the Green500 list of the most energy-efficient supercomputers, it even ranked 8th in 2021. The HPC system supplied by Hewlett Packard Enterprise is designed to respond coherently to the needs of its user communities, addressing complex scientific and industrial challenges, including standard numerical simulations, demanding data analysis, and artificial intelligence applications.^[14]

Discoverer

"Discoverer", the EuroHPC supercomputer located in Bulgaria, was the third launched under the program on October 21, 2021. It is located on the territory of the Bulgarian Science and Technology Park "Sofia Tech Park" in Sofia, Bulgaria. The cost is co-financed by Bulgaria and EuroHPC JU with a joint investment of € 11.5 million completed by Atos. Discoverer has a stable performance of 4.5 petaflops and a peak performance of 6 petaflops.^{[15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]}

Vega

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.^{[21] [22]}

MeluXina

"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.^{[23] [24] [21] [25]}

LUMI

The LUMI supercomputer is located at CSC in Kajaani, Finland. The HPE Cray EX supercomputer was supplied by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE),^[26] with joint funding by EuroHPC and the LUMI Consortium.^[27] As of mid-2022, the LUMI-C partition is operational, with the LUMI-G partition expected to become operational by the end of 2022. With a measured High Performance Linpack (HPL) performance of 151,9 petaflops, LUMI ranked 3rd on the June 2022 edition of the TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers.^[28] Once fully operational, the system will have a theoretical peak performance of 550 petaflops. ^{[29] [30]}

Leonardo

Located in the Technopole of Bologna, in Bologna, Italy, Leonardo is a pre-exascale supercomputer which was installed in 2022. It is supplied by ATOS, based on a BullSequana XH2000 supercomputer and hosted by CINECA. Once fully operational, it is expected to be capable of executing over 250 petaflops.^[31]

MareNostrum5

MareNostrum 5 will be located at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Barcelona, Spain. In 2022 it was announced that the system will be built by Atos. Once operational, MareNostrum 5 will be a top-of-the-range supercomputer, with an expected peak performance of 314 Petaflops. ^[32]

New supercomputers

In 2022, the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking announced a further five supercomputers coming soon to five European countries:

• DAEDALUS hosted by the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET) in Greece,
• LEVENTE hosted by the Governmental Agency for IT Development (KIFU) in Hungary,
• CASPIr hosted by the National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway) in Ireland,
• EHPCPL hosted by the Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET AGH (CYFRONET) in Poland,
• and JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer, will be hosted by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany.

In 2023, the EuroHPC JU announced a further two supercomputers:

• The second European exascale supercomputer,^[33] hosted by GENCI in France; and
• Arrhenius,^[34] a mid-range supercomputer hosted by Linköping University in Sweden.

Members

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

Public members

As of July 2022, public members of the Joint Undertaking include, the European Union (represented by the European Commission), 27 of the 27 EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden), and six non-EU associated states of the EU's Horizon 2020 programme (Israel, North Macedonia, Norway, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey).^{[35] [36]}

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.^[37]

Observer states

The United Kingdom lost its observer status following its departure from the EU on 31 January 2020.^[38]

Private members

The Joint Undertaking's private members include the European Technology Platform for High Performance Computing (ETP4HPC), the European Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC), 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.

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.^[39] The European Commission and each participating state appoint one representative in the Governing Board. Each representative may be accompanied by one expert. The EU holds 50% of the voting rights through the European Commission representative. 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.

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.

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.

Headquarters

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking is headquartered in the Drosbach Building, used by the European Commission, in the Luxembourg City quarter of Gasperich, Luxembourg.^[40]

See also

• Digital Single Market
• HPC Europa
• Supercomputing in Europe

External links

• Official website
• Luxembourg government video on EuroHPC

Notes and References

1. Web site: European Council conclusions, 28 June 2016 . consilium.europa.eu . 10 June 2019 . 29 August 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190829093913/https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/21645/28-euco-conclusions.pdf . live .
2. Web site: The European declaration on High-Performance Computing . Digital Single Market – European Commission . 10 June 2019 . en . 28 February 2018 . 5 June 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190605081655/https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/european-declaration-high-performance-computing . live .
3. News: Simon . Frédéric . EU hails new Airbus-size alliance for supercomputers . 10 June 2019 . euractiv.com . 24 March 2017 . 18 July 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190718073445/https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/eu-hails-new-airbus-size-alliance-for-supercomputers/ . live .
4. Web site: Legislative train schedule – Connected digital single market European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking / 2018–01 . europarl.europa.eu . 10 June 2019 . 9 November 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191109114257/http://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-connected-digital-single-market/file-european-high-performance-computing-joint-undertaking . live .
5. European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking Annual Activity Report 2020
6. Web site: 13 July 2021 . Council Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 of 13 July 2021 on establishing the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking and repealing Regulation (EU) 2018/1488 .
7. Web site: EuroHPC Joint Undertaking . Discover EuroHPC Budget . 20 July 2022 . EuroHPC Joint Undertaking.
8. Web site: 28 September 2018 . European Commission – Press release – Council backs Commission's plans to invest €1 billion in world-class European supercomputers . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20190530184817/http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-5864_en.htm . 30 May 2019 . europa.eu . 10 June 2019.
9. News: 15 February 2019 . EuroHPC Takes First Steps Towards Exascale . insideHPC . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20190819184804/https://insidehpc.com/2019/02/eurohpc-takes-first-steps-towards-exascale/ . 19 August 2019 . 10 June 2019.
10. Web site: European Commission – Press release – Digital Single Market: Europe announces eight sites to host world-class supercomputers . europa.eu . 7 June 2019 . 10 June 2019 . 8 June 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190608192947/http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-2868_en.htm . live .
11. News: Brenton . Hannah . Luxembourg to host one of EU's first supercomputers . 10 June 2019 . luxtimes.lu . 7 June 2019 . en . 8 June 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190608230921/https://luxtimes.lu/european-union/37552-luxembourg-to-host-one-of-eu-s-first-supercomputers . live .
12. News: Brueckner . Rich . EU Funds Eight Pre-exascale Supercomputers . 10 June 2019 . insideHPC . 7 June 2019 . 28 December 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211228022859/https://insidehpc.com/2019/06/eu-funds-eight-pre-exascale-supercomputers/ . live .
13. Web site: Peckham . Oliver . 2022-06-15 . EuroHPC Announces First Exascale Supercomputer and Four Other Systems . 2022-07-28 . HPCwire . en-US.
14. Web site: IT4Innovations . KAROLINA . 8 November 2023.
15. Web site: Discoverer powers up: The Bulgarian EuroHPC supercomputer is inaugurated | European High Performance Computer Joint Undertaking . 25 October 2021 . 27 October 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211027184601/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/press-releases/discoverer-powers-bulgarian-eurohpc-supercomputer-inaugurated . live .
16. Web site: PetaSC: A new EuroHPC world-class supercomputer in Bulgaria | European High Performance Computer Joint Undertaking . 25 October 2021 . 18 October 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211018181425/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/press-releases/petasc-new-eurohpc-world-class-supercomputer-bulgaria . live .
17. Web site: Добромир Видев . Европейският суперкомпютър в България започва официално работа – От деня – БНР Новини . Bnr.bg . 2021-12-28 . 25 October 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211025160747/https://bnr.bg/post/101544991 . live .
18. Web site: Webcafe . Европейският суперкомпютър започна работа у нас . Webcafe.bg . 2021-10-21 . 2021-12-28 . 25 October 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211025160446/https://webcafe.bg/business/evropeyskiyat-superkompyutar-zapochva-rabota-u-nas.html . live .
19. Web site: Българският суперкомпютър Discoverer вече работи - Bgonair . 25 October 2021 . 25 October 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211025160439/https://www.bgonair.bg/a/5-science/243205-balgarskiyat-superkompyutar-discoverer-veche-raboti . live .
20. Web site: Антония Чорева . Представиха най-новия петскейл суперкомпютър Discover . News.bg . 2021-10-21 . 2021-12-28 . 25 October 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211025160540/https://news.bg/politics/predstaviha-nay-noviya-petskeyl-superkompyutar-discover.html . live .
21. Web site: Discover EuroHPC JU European High Performance Computer Joint Undertaking. 2021-07-13. eurohpc-ju.europa.eu. 7 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210607165453/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/discover-eurohpc-ju. live.
22. Web site: SloTimes. Editor. 2021-04-21. Supercomputer Vega launched in Slovenia. 2021-07-13. Slovenia Times. en-US. 1 May 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210501114527/https://sloveniatimes.com/supercomputer-vega-launched-in-slovenia/. live.
23. Web site: Luxembourg launches Meluxina supercomputer. 2021-07-13. delano.lu. en. 13 July 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210713094939/https://delano.lu/article/delano_luxembourg-launches-meluxina-supercomputer. live.
24. Web site: MeluXina is live: the EuroHPC JU supercomputer in Luxembourg is operational European High Performance Computer Joint Undertaking. 2021-07-13. eurohpc-ju.europa.eu. 7 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210607165451/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/news/meluxina-live-eurohpc-ju-supercomputer-luxembourg-operational. live.
25. Web site: MeluXina: a new EuroHPC world-class supercomputer in Luxembourg European High Performance Computer Joint Undertaking. 2021-07-13. eurohpc-ju.europa.eu. 7 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210607165451/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/news/meluxina-new-eurohpc-world-class-supercomputer-luxembourg. live.
26. Web site: October 21, 2020 . Hewlett Packard Enterprise wins $160M+ contract to power one of the world's fastest supercomputers . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20210719084527/https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/press-release/2020/10/hewlett-packard-enterprise-wins-160m-contract-to-power-one-of-the-worlds-fastest-supercomputers-based-in-finland-to-bolster-europes-research-in-science-and-unlock-economic-growth.html . 19 July 2021 . 13 July 2021 . Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
27. Web site: Ivarsson . Lars-Owe . LUMI Supercomputer – Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20210713093810/https://www.snic.se/resources/compute-resources/lumi-supercomputer/ . 13 July 2021 . 2021-07-13 . www.snic.se . en.
28. Web site: June 2022 TOP500 . 2022-07-28 . www.top500.org.
29. Web site: October 21, 2020. LUMI: a new EuroHPC world-class supercomputer in Finland. live. 2021-07-13. EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. 10 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210610152353/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/news/lumi-new-eurohpc-world-class-supercomputer-finland.
30. Web site: LUMI supercomputer . 2022-07-28 . LUMI . en-US.
31. Web site: About Leonardo Pre-exascale Supercomputer . 2022-07-28 . en-GB.
32. Web site: MareNostrum5: a new EuroHPC world-class supercomputer in Spain . 2022-07-28 . BSC-CNS . en.
33. Web site: The Jules Verne Consortium Will Host the New EuroHPC Exascale Supercomputer in France . eurohpc-ju.europa.eu . 19 June 2024 .
34. Web site: The Way is Open to Build a EuroHPC World-class Supercomputer in Sweden . eurohpc-ju.europa.eu . 19 June 2024 .
35. Web site: Governance . 2022-07-28 . eurohpc-ju.europa.eu . en.
36. Web site: Documents . 2022-07-28 . eurohpc-ju.europa.eu . en.
37. Web site: EuroHPC – Members . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20210501114525/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/discover-eurohpc#ecl-inpage-208 . 1 May 2021 . eurohpc-ju.europa.eu . 13 December 2020.
38. News: Emmen . Ad . The UK left EuroHPC . 14 February 2020 . 17 February 2020 . primeurmagazine.com . 17 February 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200217010850/http://primeurmagazine.com/flash/AE-PF-02-20-7.html . live .
39. Web site: EuroHPC – Governance . eurohpc-ju.europa.eu . 10 June 2019 . 26 October 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201026193323/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/governance . live .
40. Web site: EuroHPC – Contact us . eurohpc-ju.europa.eu . 13 December 2019 . 26 October 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201026184426/https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/contact . live .