Brussels, 19/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 18 September, the Commission launched 23 new research projects on “Grid” technologies for a total of €78 million. Grid technologies work by linking up thousands of computers and devices, to provide information processing power on demand and more flexibly and cheaply than ever before, thus enabling businesses and individuals to generate, share and process knowledge for decision making, define and execute complex business operations, and cooperate via networks that are more secure than today's internet. By investing research in “Grid” technology for several years (the Commission having invested some €130 million in Grid research and €250 million in deployment of this technology since 2002), the EU helps European businesses to produce high quality competitive goods and services in the automobile, aeronautics, finance, pharmaceuticals and media sectors. The motor industry is a concrete example: the use by German Audi of grid prototypes for computer-aided design, engineering and testing, as part of the EU-funded SIMDAT project, allows manufacturers and dealers in various countries and locations to exploit data for instantaneous sharing of knowledge, and to optimise workflows within networked “virtual” enterprises.
Out of the €78 million allocated under the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Development (FPRD) to these 23 research projects, nearly €36 million is earmarked for the three main projects: - BEinGRID (€15.7 million) which is to run 18 business experiments to test and accelerate the take-up of Grid technologies in a range of European business sectors (financial, industrial, chemistry, retail, textiles, entertainment, etc.); - XtreemOS (€14.2 million), which will extend the open source operating system Linux with Grid services and support for virtual organisations; - and BREIN (€6.6 million), which will adapt and deliver Grid technologies from academic environments to support critical applications for logistics management at airports. (For further information: http: //cordis.europa.eu/ist/grids).