EUROPEAN COMMISSION Brussels, 18.9.2020 SWD(2020) 179 final COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Equipping Europe for world-class High Performance Computing in the next decade Accompanying the document Proposal for a Council Regulation on Establishing the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking {COM(2020) 569 final} EN EN Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... 2 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 6 2. The European strategy on HPC: state of play ........................................................................ 8 2.1 A brief overview of the Union’s policy in HPC ....................................................... 8 2.2 The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and its current mission and activities .................. 8 2.3 Main achievements of the EuroHPC JU in its first year of operations .................. 12 2.4 The EuroHPC strategy and its impact on the HPC value chain ............................. 20 2.5 Lessons learnt from the EuroHPC JU governance and administration .................. 21 3. HPC in a fast evolving environment .................................................................................... 23 3.1 The increasing importance of HPC for a wide range of applications .................... 23 3.2 HPC Market drivers ............................................................................................... 25 3.3 Evolution of user requirements .............................................................................. 27 3.4 The convergence of HPC with AI .......................................................................... 29 3.5 Evolution of supercomputing technologies ............................................................ 30 3.6 New computing paradigms Neuromorphic and Quantum Computing ................... 31 3.7 Training and skills for the next decade .................................................................. 33 3.8 New political guidelines and Commission priorities for the period 2019-2024 .... 34 4. The Union’s HPC strategic approach for the next MFF (2021-2027) ................................. 36 4.1 Rationale for a new mission of the EuroHPC JU in the next MFF ........................ 36 4.2 The mission of the EuroHPC JU in the next MFF ................................................. 37 5. The main activities of EuroHPC JU in the next MFF ......................................................... 40 5.1 The new pillars of activity ...................................................................................... 40 5.2 The supporting programmes of the next MFF ....................................................... 46 5.3 Interactions and synergies with other strategic objectives and policies ................. 47 5.4 International Cooperation ....................................................................................... 48 Acronyms and abbreviations .................................................................................................... 50 List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... 52 Annex I: Market Analysis and Investments ............................................................................. 53 The economic impact of HPC ...................................................................................... 53 The HPC market ........................................................................................................... 55 Europe and the HPC Market ........................................................................................ 57 Uses of HPC with AI and Cloud .................................................................................. 58 HPC worldwide investments: the strategic race towards exascale computing ............ 60 Annex II: HPC and AI .............................................................................................................. 64 Annex III: Applications of HPC ............................................................................................... 71 The data revolution and the strategic digital autonomy ............................................... 71 HPC and industry’s innovation potential ..................................................................... 72 Scientific leadership ..................................................................................................... 74 Societal challenges, policy making and national security ............................................ 75 HPC and the COVID-19 crisis ..................................................................................... 78 Endnotes and web references ................................................................................................... 81 Executive Summary This Staff Working Document (SWD) outlines the continuation of Europe’s ambitious strategic approach in High Performance Computing (HPC) for the next decade. HPC is an essential digital infrastructure for achieving the Commission’s aim of maximising the benefits of digitisation for everyone as outlined in the Commission Communications on “A European strategy for data”1 and “Shaping Europe’s Digital Future”2, and one of the priority recovery investments identified in “Europe's moment: Repair and Prepare for the Next Generation”. 3 The SWD accompanies the Commission proposal for a revised Regulation on the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). It provides an updated information to the JU’s Impact Assessment that was held in 2018,4 and that is still applying to a large extent as the JU was only established late 2018. The SWD builds on the European strategy on HPC implemented in the period 2012-2020 and analyses the evolution of this strategy since the launch of the EuroHPC JU, which has become the strategy’s main implementation body. HPC is a critical capability for the digital transformation of our society, and is the “engine” that powers the data economy, enabling key technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics and cybersecurity to exploit the enormous potential of big data. HPC is used in more than 800 scientific, industrial and public sector applications that play a major role in boosting industry’s innovation capability, advancing science, and improving citizens’ quality of life. Europe is today a leader in HPC applications in a wide range of areas such as personalised medicine, weather forecasting, the design of new aeroplanes, cars, materials, and drugs, and energy, engineering and manufacturing. HPC enables many industrial sectors to innovate and to move up into higher value products and services paving the way to novel industrial applications in combination with other advanced digital technologies. HPC applications and infrastructures are essential in nearly every field of research for deeper scientific understanding and breakthroughs from fundamental physics to biomedicine. HPC is also an essential tool for researchers and policy- makers to address major societal challenges, from climate change, smart and green development, and sustainable agriculture to personalised medicine and crisis management. A good example is the COVID-19 pandemic, where HPC is used, often in combination with AI, to accelerate the discovery of new drugs, predict the virus’ spread, plan and distribute scarce medical resources, and anticipate the effectiveness of different containment measures and post-epidemic scenarios. Another good example is the EU Destination Earth initiative5 which aims to use vast amounts of data gathered from satellite and terrestrial data and build a high- precision digital model of the Earth to monitor and simulate, by using HPC, natural and human activity. Destination Earth would provide to a large number of users applications and services such as weather forecasting, urban and rural planning, waste and water management and oceanographic, marine and frozen environment modelling. This will help speed up the EU green transition objectives and assist in preparing for as well as managing major environmental degradation and disasters. Europe’s leading role in the data economy, its scientific excellence, and its industrial competitiveness will increasingly depend on its capability to autonomously develop key HPC technologies, reducing dependence on foreign providers, provide access to world-class supercomputing and data infrastructures, and maintain global leadership in HPC applications. To make this happen, a pan-European strategic approach is essential. 2 The EuroHPC JU was established in 2018 as a Joint Undertaking under Article 187 TFEU, pooling resources from the EU, 32 countries (EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon 2020), and two Private Members: the European Technology Platform for HPC (ETP4HPC) and the Big Data Value (BDVA) Associations. After two years of operation, the EuroHPC JU has substantially increased the overall investment in HPC at European level and has started to deliver on its mission to restore Europe’s position as a leading HPC power globally. By the end of 2020, it will deploy a first- class supercomputing and data infrastructure accessible to public and private users all over Europe. Investments under the current Regulation will also support HPC Competence Centres throughout Europe, the development of HPC skills, and R&I in critical HPC hardware