The European Union is considering eight new supercomputers to help the world of research and industry develop new applications in a wide range of areas, from the design of medicines and new materials to the fight against climate change. The names of the eight sites that will host these machines were announced on Friday 7 June by the European Commission.
The cities of Barcelona (Spain), Bologna (Italy), Kajaani (Finland), Minho (Portugal), Ostrava (Czech Republic), Bissen (Luxembourg), Sofia (Bulgaria) and Maribor (Slovenia) have been selected by the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC) involving all Twenty-Eight Member States (see EUROPE 12106/26).
In total, the European Commission notes in its press release, 19 of the 28 countries participating in the joint venture will be among the consortia leading these centres. Taking into account EU funds, this represents a total budget of 840 million euros. The financing terms for the new supercomputers will be detailed in the hosting agreements to be signed shortly.
"Once [this infrastructure, editor's note] is operational in the second half of 2020, Europe will be among the top five supercomputers in the world. But this race does not stop there: the EU will have to step up its efforts to move to even more powerful forms of computing, such as quantum computing or cryptography", Commissioner Mariya Gabriel told Telecommunications Ministers. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)