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}



Table of Contents Executive Summary 1. Introduction 2. The European strategy on HPC: state of play 2.1 A brief overview of the Union’s policy in HPC 2.2 The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and its current mission and activities 2.3 Main achievements of the EuroHPC JU in its first year of operations 2.4 The EuroHPC strategy and its impact on the HPC value chain 2.5 Lessons learnt from the EuroHPC JU governance and administration 3. HPC in a fast evolving environment 3.1 The increasing importance of HPC for a wide range of applications 3.2 HPC Market drivers 3.3 Evolution of user requirements 3.4 The convergence of HPC with AI 3.5 Evolution of supercomputing technologies 3.6 New computing paradigms Neuromorphic and Quantum Computing 3.7 Training and skills for the next decade 3.8 New political guidelines and Commission priorities for the period 2019-2024 4. The Union’s HPC strategic approach for the next MFF (2021-2027)

4.1 Rationale for a new mission of the EuroHPC JU in the next MFF 4.2 The mission of the EuroHPC JU in the next MFF 5. The main activities of EuroHPC JU in the next MFF 5.1 The new pillars of activity 5.2 The supporting programmes of the next MFF 5.3 Interactions and synergies with other strategic objectives and policies 5.4 International Cooperation Acronyms and abbreviations List of Figures Annex I: Market Analysis and Investments The economic impact of HPC The HPC market Europe and the HPC Market Uses of HPC with AI and Cloud HPC worldwide investments: the strategic race towards exascale computing Annex II: HPC and AI Annex III: Applications of HPC The data revolution and the strategic digital autonomy HPC and industry’s innovation potential Scientific leadership

Societal challenges, policy making and national security HPC and the COVID-19 crisis Endnotes and web references 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” I and “Shaping Europe’s Digital Future” II , and one of the priority recovery investments identified in “Europe's moment: Repair and Prepare for the Next Generation”. III 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, IV 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 initiative V 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. 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 and software technologies and applications, increasing the EU’s capability to autonomously produce and use competitive HPC technology. For the strategic investments made so far, the EuroHPC JU has used funds from the current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). The implementation of the European HPC strategy with funds from the next MFF requires a revision of the EuroHPC Council Regulation. VI This SWD describes the essential role HPC will play in the next MFF period for the EU’s competitiveness, the digital transformation of Europe, and the creation of European public common data spaces. It provides evidence of the importance of the EuroHPC JU’s activities, and of the impact that its continuation will have on an increasing number of critical technologies and applications in the next decade, notably for European leadership in low-power processor technologies and in AI. VII The SWD also analyses the key socio-economic and technological drivers affecting the future evolution of HPC and data infrastructures, technologies and applications in the EU and worldwide, including the EU’s political priorities for 2020-2025. One of the most important technological drivers that the SWD considers is the emergence of quantum computing. Initial quantum computing systems already exist mostly in an experimental form; larger systems are expected to become available in the period 2021-2027 that could operate next to or be integrated with traditional HPC systems. The revision of the Council Regulation provides an opportunity to update the mission and objectives of the EuroHPC JU, taking into consideration these new drivers and the lessons learnt from the JU’s current activities. This SWD suggests an updated mission for the JU: By 2027, develop, deploy, extend and maintain in the Union a world leading federated, secure and hyper-connected supercomputing, quantum computing service and data infrastructure ecosystem; support the production of innovative and competitive supercomputing systems based on a supply chain that will ensure components, technologies and knowledge limiting the risk of disruptions and the development of a wide range of applications optimised for these systems; widen the use of this supercomputing infrastructure to a large number of public and private users, and support the development of key skills for European science and industry. The roadmap for the development and deployment of the federated computing infrastructure of the EuroHPC JU is summarised in the table below (including infrastructure investments for 2019-2020). Investments in the period 2021-2027 will target an ambitious combination of interconnected world-class HPC and quantum computing systems: 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027



HPC Infrastructure 3 pre-exascale and 5 petascale HPC systems Several pre-exascale systems and 2 exascale HPC systems One or more exascale and post-exascale HPC systems Quantum

Infrastructure Quantum simulators interfacing with HPC systems First generation of quantum computers Quantum simulators interfacing with HPC systems Second generation of quantum computers

In order to realise this mission and roadmap, the SWD identifies the following overall objectives for the continuation of the EuroHPC JU: 1.Deploy and maintain in the Union a secure, hyper-connected and integrated world-class HPC, quantum computing and data infrastructure, based on the best existing computing, data and networking technologies; 2.Federate the HPC, quantum computing service and data infrastructure, interconnect it with the European public data spaces and cloud ecosystem, and provide EU-wide services to a wide range of public and private users; 3.Develop and support an innovative HPC and data ecosystem contributing to the standing and technological autonomy of the Union in the digital economy, capable to produce computing technologies and architectures and their integration into leading supercomputing systems, and advanced applications optimised for these systems; 4.Widen the use of HPC and develop the key skills that European science and industry need. The main expected outcomes for the EuroHPC JU in the next decade would include: ·A federated, secure and hyper-connected European HPC and data infrastructure with mid-range supercomputers and at least two top class exascale and two top class post-exascale systems (integrating as much as possible European technology); ·Hybrid computing infrastructures integrating advanced computing systems – notably quantum simulators and quantum computers – in HPC infrastructures; ·A secure cloud-based HPC and data infrastructure for European private users; ·HPC-powered capacities and services based on European public data spaces for scientists, industry and the public sector; ·Next generation technology building blocks (hardware and software) and their integration into innovative HPC architectures for exascale and post-exascale systems; ·Centres of Excellence in HPC applications and industrialisation of HPC software, with novel algorithms, codes and tools optimised for future generations of supercomputers; ·Large-scale industrial pilot test-beds and platforms for HPC and data applications and services in key industrial sectors; ·National HPC Competence Centres, ensuring a wide coverage of HPC in the EU, with specific services and resources for industrial innovation (including SMEs); ·A significant increase for Europe’s workforce in HPC skills and know-how; ·Reinforced data storage, processing capacities, and new services, in areas of public interest across the Member States. To achieve these objectives, the SWD advocates an all-encompassing approach covering national and EU investments, the participation of industrial Private Members, and close collaboration with key European actors such as PRACE VIII and GEANT. IX The EuroHPC JU should also foster international collaboration that benefits the EU. Finally, the SWD advocates for the EuroHPC JU to operate in synergy with actions in major EU priority areas, namely AI, cybersecurity, quantum technologies, big data, European public common data spaces,, and advanced digital skills. This would require collaboration with initiatives such as the Joint Undertaking on Key Digital Technologies, the Quantum Technologies Flagship, X and the European partnerships on AI, data, cybersecurity and the European Open Science Cloud. The EuroHPC JU should also forge links and synergies with other EU and national programmes and their stakeholders. 1.Introduction This Staff Working Document (SWD) accompanies a Commission proposal for the revised Regulation for the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, covering the period 2021-2033. The SWD analyses the evolution of the main factors affecting the European strategy in High Performance Computing (HPC), in particular since the establishment in 2018 of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU).5

The reasons behind the creation of the EuroHPC JU are presented in the corresponding 2018 Impact Assessment4, which is still applicable for the continuation of the JU. This SWD provides an update on the supporting data of that Impact Assessment and provides evidence to support the continuation of the EuroHPC JU as a main instrument to implement the European HPC strategy. It describes the key role that HPC will continue to play in the Union’s competitiveness and the digital transformation of the European economy and society. It sets out the increasing number of industrial, scientific and public sector applications and user needs that will benefit from continuing the EuroHPC JU. The SWD is structured as follows: ·Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the EU policy on HPC; ·Chapter 2 presents the role and achievements of the EuroHPC JU for the European strategy on HPC and the lessons learnt since its establishment in 2018; ·Chapter 3 analyses the main drivers that are likely to affect the evolution of HPC in the next decade. They include the increasing importance of HPC for a wide range of applications, the evolution of the market, user requirements, developments in the underlying technology, notably in quantum computing, and the new political factors to consider; ·Chapter 4 describes the suggested mission and mandate of the EuroHPC JU in the period 2021-2027, taking into consideration the drivers analysed in Chapter 3; ·Chapter 5 presents the suggested main implementation activities of the EuroHPC JU in the period 2021-2027 and the different instruments to support such implementation; ·The Annexes gather the supporting data, in particular on the economic impact of HPC, the evolution of the world market and investments, and the key convergence of HPC with AI. They also provide representative examples of the key HPC applications in different domains, and illustrate the important role of HPC in tackling global crises, such as the COVID-19. What is High Performance Computing (HPC) and why is it important? The term “High Performance Computing” is used in this document as a synonym for high-end computing, supercomputing or world-class computing, dealing with problems so demanding, that the massive computations needed to solve them cannot be performed by general-purpose computers. Instead, they require very powerful systems, called HPC systems or supercomputers. A supercomputer interconnects a large number of processors (from a few hundred to several thousand) working in parallel. The fastest supercomputers are currently achieving petascale performance, and the next frontier is the exascale computing. Supercomputing power is currently increasing so fast that world-class machines are becoming obsolete after, on average, 5-6 years. As an example, an ordinary laptop today has the computing power of the world's top supercomputer 25 years ago. HPC methodologies include modelling and simulation, and are frequently associated with big data analytics, visualisation, AI (e.g. machine and deep learning), and other techniques. HPC powers hundreds of applications across virtually all branches of science, industry and sectors, including the public sector. Representative examples of such applications include: personalised medicine, models for climate change, earth observation, precision agriculture, engineering and manufacturing, cybersecurity, and oil and gas exploration. This SWD does not aim to provide an exhaustive list of all HPC applications. However numerous examples are presented in the Annexes. Examples of the application areas currently supported in projects funded under Horizon 2020 XI and the Connecting Europe Facility XII (CEF) include: ·Horizon 2020 support for HPC Centres of Excellence in areas such as weather and climate prediction, materials, energy, biomolecular and biomedical sciences. Large scale industrial pilots are supported in the areas of digital twins, health, precision agriculture and farming, finance and insurance. A specific project (Esxcalate4CoV, see box below) has been set up to develop solutions for COVID-19. ·Projects funded by under CEF-Telecom address HPC supporting application areas such as smart agriculture, forestry evolution and fire control, air quality and pollution, atmospheric, marine and earth observation, and cultural heritage in the EU. ·In 2019 the EuroHPC JU launched a Call for HPC powered innovative applications in sectors of societal and industrial relevance for Europe. Selected projects are expected to start in autumn 2020. HPC and the COVID-19 pandemic The global COVID-19 crisis illustrates how HPC in combination with other digital technologies such as big data and AI can be critical in the fight against the pandemic by supporting the decision-making on containment measures and dramatically accelerating the development of a treatment or a vaccine. An outstanding example of the European effort is the EU funded “Esxcalate4CoV” project (EXaSCale smArt pLatform Against paThogEns – Corona Virus – see https://www.exscalate4cov.eu/ ), which uses massive supercomputing resources (more than 120 Petaflops) from 4 European HPC systems to analyse the effectiveness of over 500 billion pharmacological molecules against the COVID-19 viral proteins that are key for its propagation. Using classical computing methods, the analysis of each molecule would take several months, while the HPC simulation can do so in just 50 milliseconds. Over 100 molecules have been selected so far for biological screening and clinical testing that could lead to eventual identification and production of a treatment. The use of HPC resources with big data sets, deep learning methods and large-scale complex computational models is also critical to effectively support policymakers during epidemic emergencies. It helps to rapidly forecast the trajectory of the spread of an infectious disease, planning the public health policy response, as well as simulating the efficiency of different containment measures and evaluating the different post-epidemic scenarios. 2.The European strategy on HPC: state of play

2.1 A brief overview of the Union’s policy in HPC In the last few years, the ambition of the Union has been to be among the world's top supercomputing powers and provide everywhere in the Union an integrated world-class HPC capability, high-speed connectivity and leading-edge data and software services. The EuroHPC JU was established to implement the Union’s strategy on HPC developed in several Commission Communications since 2012: COM(2012) 45 final XIII , COM(2016) 178 final XIV , COM(2017) 228 final XV , and further supported by the Competitiveness Council (May 2013 XVI and May 2016 XVII ), the European Council (June 2016 XVIII ), the European Parliament (January 2017 XIX ), and the Telecommunications Council (June 2020 XX ). In the decade 2008-2018, more than EUR 1.2 billion of the EU budget was invested in HPC activities through several programmes: ·In 2008-2013, around EUR 145 million, from the 7th EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FP7) XXI ; ·In 2014-2020, around EUR 1135 million, from Horizon 202011 and the Connecting Europe Facility12 (CEF, in particular under CEF-Telecom). From 2014 onwards, a contractual public-private-partnership (cPPP) between the Commission and the European Technology Platform (ETP4HPC) Association XXII was established. This cPPP lasted until the set-up of the EuroHPC JU in 2018. For the next MFF, the EuroHPC JU would work in synergy with other major EU priority areas identified in several Commission Communications, in particular “A European strategy for data”1, ”Shaping Europe’s Digital Future”2 and the “White Paper on Artificial Intelligence”7. HPC has also been identified in the Communication “Europe's moment: Repair and Prepare for the Next Generation”3 as a strategic digital capacity that will be a priority of European recovery investments such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility, InvestEU and the Strategic Investment Facility. 2.2 The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and its current mission and activities The EuroHPC JU was established on 28 September 2018 by a Council Regulation6. Its current Members are the Union (represented by the Commission), 32 Participating States (26 Member States and 6 Countries associated to Horizon 2020), and two Private Members: the European Technology Platform for High Performance Computing Association (ETP4HPC)22 and the Big Data Value XXIII Association (BDVA). EuroHPC also relies on collaboration with key European actors such as PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) and GEANT (the pan-European high-speed network for research and education). The mission of the EuroHPC JU as stated in the current Regulation of 2018 is “to develop, deploy, extend and maintain in the Union an integrated world-class supercomputing and data infrastructure and to develop and support a highly competitive and innovative High-Performance Computing ecosystem”, for the next-generation exascale supercomputing era and beyond. The EuroHPC JU has become the strategic instrument for supporting EU competitiveness in the global digital economy. The JU mobilises critical national and Union efforts around a joint strategy to provide Europe with world-class supercomputing capabilities and knowledge according to its economic potential, aiming at technological autonomy in critical HPC technologies and infrastructures. The Union’s digital autonomy in HPC requires the capacity of developing world class infrastructures integrating as much as possible top-quality European technology. The objectives of the current EuroHPC JU reflect the need to invest in both the deployment of a world-class infrastructure and the development of a full European HPC ecosystem. Establishment, budget and activities under the current Regulation The EuroHPC JU was initially established for the period 2019 to 2026. The initial co-investment of the Union and the Participating States is around EUR 1.1 billion, with the Union contributing EUR 536 million from the current MFF (2014-2020), and the remainder coming from the Participating States. The Private Members will contribute an additional EUR 422 million in the form of in-kind contributions. The governance structure of the EuroHPC JU is described in the Council Regulation. Currently, the Commission ensures the transitional period until the full autonomy of the JU (expected in Q4 2020). In accordance with its work for 2019 and 2020, the EuroHPC JU is supporting the following two main types of activities: 1.Acquisition of HPC infrastructure: Eight sites were recently selected XXIV to host top world-class supercomputers. They are located in Member States and are supported also by many Participating States of the JU, giving a very wide geographical coverage to the initiative: ·Three precursors-to-exascale supercomputers aiming to be classed in the world top 5 supercomputers. The hosting entities and supporting consortia are the following: BSC (Barcelona), Spain, with Croatia, Portugal and Turkey

CINECA (Bologna), Italy, with Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary CSC (Kajaani), Finland, with Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland The EuroHPC JU will own these systems and will support 50% of their total cost of ownership (TCO). The JU will have 50% of the total computing access rights. The other 50% will be with the Member State of the hosting site and its supporting consortia. ·Five petascale supercomputers, aiming at ranking in the global top-50 systems. The hosting entities and the supporting consortia of partners are the following FCT, Portugal, with Spain IT4Innovations, Czech Republic LuxProvide S.A., Luxembourg Sofia Tech Park, Bulgaria IZUM, Slovenia The EuroHPC JU and the Member State of the hosting site will jointly own these systems. The EuroHPC JU will support 35% of the acquisition costs of the systems, and will have 35% of the total computing access rights. The Member State of the hosting site (with their associated Participating States) will support the rest of the TCO and will have 65% of computing access rights for their own use. The EuroHPC JU signed specific hosting agreements with each of the 8 hosting sites that define the acquisition and operation procedures and the funding arrangements for the new supercomputers. The acquisition process started in the last quarter of 2019. The supercomputers are expected to be installed during the second half of 2020 and will be interconnected and connected to the existing national supercomputers of the PRACE members through the GEANT network. 2.Funding strategic Research and Innovation (R&I) actions through calls for proposals contributing to the EuroHPC JU’s mission to develop and support a highly competitive and innovative HPC ecosystem. ·For 2019, EuroHPC has launched a Call for R&I actions XXV for EUR 190 million that supports the development of essential technologies for exascale systems, industry-oriented HPC application platforms, and industrial software codes; innovation activities for manufacturing and engineering SMEs; and the establishment of HPC competence centres in the Participating States and the coordination of their activities at European level. ·For 2020, the plan is to invest another EUR 170 million in supporting the following R&I activities: funding the next phase of the European Processor Initiative (EPI) XXVI (see box below); the integration of European technologies in advanced pilots that will lay the basis for developing future European exascale supercomputers; training and education in HPC; and pilots on quantum simulators. ·In addition to the above, two Horizon 2020 Calls for proposals will be launched in 2020, one for complementing the current 9 HPC Centres of Excellence XXVII for scientific leadership in HPC applications, and one on promoting International Cooperation XXVIII , with the aim of developing a strategic partnership in HPC with Latin America. The European Processor Initiative (EPI) is a 5-year ambitious large-scale European initiative aiming to develop critical low-power microprocessor technology. The EPI consortium brings together 23 partners from 10 European countries. The first phase started in December 2018 under Horizon 2020 with EUR 80 million of EU funding. The EuroHPC JU plans to support the second phase of EPI, as of 2020. EPI will develop components developed to cover not only the HPC sector but also broader markets and domains (e.g. extreme-scale, big-data and emerging applications based on edge computing) that demand high-end computing capabilities such as autonomous driving. A new European semiconductor company (Si-pearl) is tasked to commercialise the results of EPI. The EuroHPC JU plans to launch a call in 2020 aiming to integrate the EPI-based technologies into advanced pilots for exascale systems. The pilots will adopt a co-design approach to bridge the gap between suppliers and users to define new architectures and better computational methods and algorithms adapted to real application needs. 2.3 Main achievements of the EuroHPC JU in its first year of operations In 2018, the Impact Assessment (IA)4 and a study by the European Investment Bank (EIB) XXIX on financing supercomputing in Europe identified a range of obstacles to the development of a successful HPC ecosystem in Europe. The EuroHPC JU has already removed a number of these obstacles, bringing substantial improvement to the situation previous to its establishment, as confirmed by the “Impact Assessment Study for Institutionalised European Partnerships under Horizon Europe - Candidate Institutionalised European Partnership in High-Performance Computing (Final Report)” XXX .

The following paragraphs describe the main achievements of the JU in advancing from the baseline situation analysed in the 2017 Impact Assessment and the EIB study on financing supercomputing, for simplicity referred to as “EuroHPC IA” and “EIB study”, respectively. 1.The EuroHPC JU has substantially increased the level and quality of investments in HPC at European level in a single and coordinated effort with Member States ·The EuroHPC JU coordinates and pools EU and national investments Overall, the EuroHPC JU provides a powerful single legal framework for pooling the necessary EU, national and regional resources, mobilising public and private efforts at European level to support the HPC ecosystem. All the Participating States provide strong support to the JU and contribute to its success. The JU has now become the most powerful and effective instrument for pooling resources, coordinating investments and promoting collaboration between the EU and the Participating States in organising specific actions, driven by an ambitious European HPC strategy. The EuroHPC Research and Innovation Advisory Group (RIAG) draws up the strategic R&I agenda of the JU with the support of the European industry players participating as Private Members of the JU (the ETP4HPC and BDVA Associations). This agenda reflects the global strategic developments in the field. ·The EuroHPC JU has rationalised the implementation of national and EU investments and programmes At EU level, before the JU’s establishment, the Commission was using four different programmes to implement HPC activities: FET, LEIT-ICT and the e-Infrastructures (Horizon 2020) and the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). EuroHPC represents a clear improvement to that situation: by integrating all HPC activities into a single instrument, it helped resolve the problem of fragmentation and lack of coordination of the Union’s HPC resources. At national level, the EuroHPC JU helps rationalise and optimise investments and redefine national strategies and programmes by exploiting synergies and complementarities with the relevant Union’s actions and European priorities. ·The EuroHPC JU has increased the overall HPC investments in Europe Regarding the overall level of funding in HPC, the JU has initiated so far an unprecedented investment in European advanced digital infrastructures, responding to the need identified in the EIB Study: “Increase financial support from the public sector for strategic HPC infrastructure and services with an emphasis on improved coordination and a strong public value investment approach”. For the period 2019-2020 alone, the JU will mobilise public commitments of around EUR 1.1 billion, representing a net increase of nearly EUR 250 million per year at European level, compared with the situation before the creation of the EuroHPC JU. 2.By the end of 2020 EuroHPC will provide the EU with the best world supercomputers ·World and EU supercomputing capabilities Europe was, and still is, a world leader in HPC applications, but its supercomputing infrastructure is falling behind in the world ranking. A widely accepted headline indicator of regional competitiveness in HPC is the number of systems in the “top-10” and “top-500” lists of world supercomputers XXXI in each world region. In June 2020, only two of the world’s top ten supercomputers were to be found in the Union, ranking sixth and ninth , compared with four systems in 2012. The current supercomputing power in the world top 500 supercomputers available in the Union is less than half of the US or China. Out of these top 500 systems, 79 are installed in EU Member States, as compared with 114 in the US and 226 in China. With the acquisition of its supercomputing infrastructure planned for the second half of 2020, the EuroHPC JU will start to bridge the gap. For example, its three precursor-to-exascale systems would be placed in the top-5 in the world, and its five petascale supercomputers will be among the top-50 – see Figure 4.

EuroHPC will also make it possible to address the first issue identified in the EuroHPC IA, namely a lack of investment in Europe in world-class supercomputers to address the digital divide across Europe with regard to access to available resources. The EuroHPC JU allows consortia of different Participating States to contribute to the acquisition and operation of the supercomputers. This pooling mechanism gives Participating States the right to allocate part of the computing resources proportional to their financial contribution to national priorities and users, and will have a very important effect at national level: it will give national users of consortia countries a direct access to world-class resources that would have never been possible otherwise. ·The EuroHPC JU will have an enormous effect in facilitating access to the best supercomputer resources in Europe EuroHPC will have a knock-on effect in the widening of HPC in countries that have never had “ownership” of such computing power. In total, 20 of the 32 countries participating in the EuroHPC JU will be part of the consortia operating the centres. For some Participating States, this will also mean hosting or enjoying national exclusive access to a “top-500” supercomputer for the first time ever – resulting in a quantum leap in supercomputing knowledge for their national stakeholders. With the exception of the Czech Republic, the other four sites selected for EuroHPC petascale computers do not have a particular track record of hosting “top-500” HPC facilities. This underlines the value proposition of participation in the partnership for smaller Member States – they can reap the benefits of hosting facilities that they would not otherwise have been likely to access. ·The EuroHPC JU will dramatically increase the computing power supply for EU users The EuroHPC IA identified a shortage of supply of supercomputing infrastructures in Europe, and this remains the case today: given the lack of top-performing HPC machines in the EU, the European scientific and engineering research community prefers to apply for US supercomputing facilities (i.e. in the US Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) Programme) XXXII rather than resources in PRACE. XXXIII Current demand for HPC infrastructure and services in the Union far exceeds the supply offered by public HPC centres and private operators. For instance, PRACE Tier-0 calls have an average oversubscription ratio of 3:1, XXXIV and there is evidence that a part of the scientific community in Europe, especially in the EU13, does not have access to the level of supercomputing performance that they need for research purposes. A comparison between PRACE and its US counterpart, ASCR, shows the extent to which European HPC facilities cannot satisfy the demand for them: ASCR awards ten times more projects to European scientific and engineering communities than PRACE. Even the five hosting PRACE members (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland) obtained more projects from ASCR than the maximum PRACE could offer per call. This is also true of some associated members of PRACE like Denmark and the UK that do not provide computing systems to PRACE. In conclusion, there is strong demand for HPC access in the EU that is not sufficiently satisfied by PRACE. The new computational capacities which the EuroHPC JU will provide will efficiently tackle this problem. EuroHPC will multiply by eight the computing power (in petaflops) and by at least 10 times the available computing time currently offered by the PRACE Tier-0 top supercomputing systems, meaning that many more users will have access to top HPC resources for European-level use.



3.EuroHPC will provide a European source of key technologies ·The EuroHPC will change the landscape of the European supply chain ecosystem Compared to the baseline situation of the HPC technological supply chain described in the EuroHPC IA, the situation is stationary: Europe continues to consume around 30% of the world HPC resources, but European vendors hardly get between 5% and 6% market share in the “top-500” systems (with ATOS as the most significant European vendor, with 5.2%). No European company supplies key components like general processors or accelerators. EuroHPC will be in an excellent position to contribute to the EU’s digital autonomy in critical technologies by supporting ambitious actions to support the development of an excellent European HPC ecosystem capable of significantly increasing the production of innovative technology. Europe’s investments and strengths in technology building blocks need now to be integrated in the next generation of supercomputers to help European industry become a leading technology supplier and reinforce its position as a world-leading user of HPC. An opportunity for this to happen is the EuroHPC JU’s planned 2020 calls, which will fund the next phase of the European Processor Initiative (EPI) and the integration of European technologies in advanced pilots for exascale computing. The transition to exascale computing is already announced in the present EuroHPC JU Regulation. It represents the opportunity for Europe’s supply industry to leverage on technologies across the computing continuum.

·Establishing a world level playing field in HPC The EuroHPC IA summarises the situation that HPC system vendors are facing in the market as follows: there is no level playing field in the HPC market; and procurement for the development and acquisition of the high-end machines is restricted to domestic suppliers for national security reasons.4 To improve this situation, the Governing Board of the EuroHPC JU has enforced the mandatory use of Article 30.3 XXXV of the Horizon 2020 Model Grant Agreement in all the R&I actions it supports, in order to avoid transfers of critical intellectual property to third countries. The EuroHPC JU retains the right to object to a transfer of ownership or the exclusive licensing of results if it is to a third party established in a non-EU country not associated with Horizon 2020, if the JU considers that the transfer or licence is not in line with EU interests regarding competitiveness or is inconsistent with ethical principles or security considerations. The EuroHPC JU may also consider using additional exploitation obligations (for example, that the first exploitation of a given technology has to be in the Union) as provided by Article 28.1 of the Horizon 2020 Model Grant Agreement. 4.EuroHPC will increase and widen the use of HPC in the EU ·Widening HPC use Each industrial sector must understand the potential of HPC before specialised HPC applications can be developed and exploited. Too often HPC use still requires advanced knowledge about the sector and highly specialised technology skills. This is particularly relevant for SMEs, as pointed out in the EIB Study: “While data-driven high-tech SMEs are rapidly engaging in the adoption of HPC into their businesses, a large number of more ‘traditional’ SMEs (such as engineering SMEs manufacturing components for large automakers) still lack awareness of the important opportunities HPC would provide to their businesses.”29 In its R&I 2019 Call,25 the EuroHPC JU supports actions that directly address this situation: establishing HPC competence centres, enabling industrial applications and codes to optimise the use of HPC and stimulating the innovation potential for manufacturing and engineering SMEs, complemented by a Horizon 2020 call for new HPC Centres of Excellence.27 These actions respond to a key recommendation of the EIB Study: to “strengthen the uptake by HPC users, in particular for commercial applications by industry, SMEs, and innovative companies and start-ups by strengthening the role of HPC intermediaries via public support.” –EuroHPC Competence Centres will be established in all Member States in 2020. Their aim will be to increase the use and expertise in HPC technologies, and help bridge the digital skills gap. The Centres will act locally, to provide knowledge and computing services supporting the real needs of businesses, in particular SMEs that do not have the in-house resources to profit from the new technologies. The Centres will be networked together and will be part of the pan-European network of current and future Digital Innovation Hubs XXXVI being established across the Union. This networking will help exchange best practices, making the resources and expertise of the Competence Centres available across the Union. –Stimulating manufacturing and engineering SMEs to improve their innovation potential by using advanced HPC services. The aim is to widen the HPC user base by attracting new users in different application domains, and to provide an effective mechanism for the inclusion of innovative, agile SMEs by lowering the barriers for small players to enter the market and exploit new business opportunities. This EuroHPC action will build on the Fortissimo actions XXXVII , which were highly successful in attracting new SME users to advanced cloud-based HPC solutions based on modelling, simulation and/or high performance data analytics (HPDA). ·Industrial and commercial use of HPC infrastructures According to the EIB study, there is a need for developing commercially oriented business models based on secure and flexible HPC services and data infrastructures, as shown by growing interest from European industry. Today, the European HPC landscape is driven by the public sector, in both usage and financing. Most of the high-end HPC capacity and use (over 90% of operating time) is located at and allocated to universities or academic research centres. The remaining 10% is available for commercial use or with HPC end users. However, HPC is of strategic importance for companies, and HPC use involves company data that must be stored and treated under strict security conditions and respecting privacy regulations. These conditions cannot be easily met by publicly owned/operated HPC centres. The EuroHPC JU is addressing this as follows: as soon as the JU’s supercomputers become available (by the end of 2020), they will be accessible to industry players for publicly funded R&I purposes. In addition, the EuroHPC JU Regulation explicitly stipulates that up to 20% of the Union's access time of the EuroHPC systems can be allocated for commercial purposes, following a pay-per-use service, based on market prices. On the advice of INFRAG, its Infrastructure Advisory Group, the EuroHPC JU is now working on how to define and provide these access conditions to European industry players by noting that the EuroHPC supercomputers will be at least ten times more powerful than any industrial system installed in Europe. The JU will also investigate the necessary usability, trust, and security needs of industrial users. As a result, EuroHPC will play a decisive role in spreading and substantially increasing HPC use by key EU industry players, creating a demand for more HPC resources for industrial use, and setting the foundations for a strategic collaboration between public and private HPC stakeholders. 2.4 The EuroHPC strategy and its impact on the HPC value chain Horizon 2020 is the main EU programme to have supported the Union’s efforts in implementing the European HPC strategy and in developing the European HPC value chain. Up to 2018, around EUR 430 million was committed to R&I activities, including technology projects (EUR 313 million), Centres of Excellence (EUR 118 million) and Coordination and Support actions (EUR 10 million). The EuroHPC JU is implementing the support from Horizon 2020 for 2019-2020. The impact of this support to the European HPC value chain has been analysed by European stakeholders XXXVIII . The main conclusions are that Horizon 2020 has contributed to achieving significant impacts on the European HPC value chain. It has supported the development of key technology results (most of them up to TRL 5-6-7) and applications and contributed to creating a stronger and more connected HPC ecosystem. 1.The European HPC value chain The production and operation of HPC systems involve a complex value chain of system hardware, system and application development software, applications, and transversal aspects.

·HPC system hardware: Horizon 2020 has supported key projects in the system hardware value chain: EPI26 to reposition Europe in a processor market dominated by US technologies, Exanode XXXIX for chip integration. Exanest XL , EuroExa XLI and Mango XLII for interconnects, and cooling solutions industrialised by SMEs (such as Iceotope or Submer). In addition, the suite of Montblanc XLIII projects are world-leading contributors to the emergence of ARM processor HPC systems and have achieved key results in FPGAs that have been commercialised by some SMEs (such as Maxeler). ·HPC system and application development software: The contribution of the Horizon 2020 projects is very diverse. Domains in which significant results are expected include a software stack for ARM-based processors systems, software for efficient use of the new levels of the storage hierarchy, resource and energy management tools, scientific libraries, domain specific languages for machine learning applications, programming environments for heterogeneous systems (CPU, GPU and FPGA), and visualization tools for interactive HPC. Most of the SMEs funded by the projects (e.g., Maxeler, Appentra, Arctur, Synelexis and Kitware) have been effective in bringing project results to the market. ·HPC applications: This part of the value chain is of utmost importance in Europe. 10 Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in HPC applications have been established in Horizon 2020. They have delivered results such as a weather and climate simulation framework ready for exascale systems, new advances in codes for material science, life science and carbon-free energy, and a methodology to assess and improve the performances of HPC codes. CoEs have the task to promote HPC research applications within industry. Large scale industrial pilots are supported in the areas of digital twins, health, precision agriculture and farming, or finance and insurance. Projects funded by the CEF-Telecom programme use HPC to support objectives in important application areas such as smart agriculture and forestry evolution and fire control, air quality and pollution, atmospheric, marine and earth observation, or cultural heritage in the EU. Besides the specific actions above, funded projects have also impacted the application value chain: almost all the project consortia include application-oriented partners. In total more than 100 codes have benefited from the Horizon 2020 support. In addition, Horizon 2020 funding has contributed to developing tailored solutions for more than 100 European SMEs, increasing their innovation potential. This funding made it possible to raise awareness of HPC and AI and provide high-end computing capabilities to SMEs through the PRACE SHAPE XLIV initiative, and to provide SMEs with cloud-based HPC services through Fortissimo’s marketplace.37 ·Transversal aspects: The most important transversal aspect in Horizon 2020 was training, provided mainly by Centres of Excellence and PRACE with a total estimated value of around EUR 23 million. Both domain specific training and training on general HPC topics was provided to more than 13 000 people. 2.Conclusions Horizon 2020 and CEF funding have already produced very good results in the different segments of the value chain. However, the impact has not yet changed the worldwide market position of the European players and has not reached some parts of the value chain, such as the industrial HPC application sector. This is because the investment has not been substantial enough to impact the complete R&D value chain (except for investments in the European Processor Initiative). Projects are not managing to transform the day to day use of HPC, as the gap between developed technologies (TRLs 5-7) and their use in production environments is still big. The majority of project partners are from research organizations (75% of the total funding of the FET projects), whose mainspring is not industrialisation of results achieved. The addition of projects targeting the TRL 6/7-9 gap and a more programme-based approach should help to maximise the impact of the future investments. Enhanced and sustained training efforts will also be a major factor in fully exploiting not only the next EuroHPC-funded pre-exascale and exascale supercomputers but also future computing generations. Moving from simulation-centric HPC to integrating HPC in a full continuum of IT infrastructure, from edge to HPC, is a major challenge. This would require to develop a strong relationship between the HPC community with other ecosystems such as big data, AI and Internet of Things (IoT). Here Europe can be a worldwide leader if the momentum created by Horizon 2020 continues. 2.5 Lessons learnt from the EuroHPC JU governance and administration The EuroHPC JU has already acquired solid working experience, with extensive discussions of the stakeholders on the governance, administration and other operational and implementation aspects from which the following main lessons learnt so far can be summarised as follows: ·Simplification of the co-funding scheme: The combination of EU and national funds in the different EuroHPC activities needs to be simplified and optimised. Recommendations include a single set of eligibility criteria for participation (instead of 32 different national eligibility criteria); implementation of central management of all financial contributions (except in duly justified cases), in line with Article 8(1)(c) of the proposed Regulation establishing Horizon Europe; and flexibility in introducing different percentages of EU and national funding to fund participants in R&I activities. ·More flexibility in defining the acquisition time and technology of new supercomputing systems e.g., by avoiding fixing in the Regulation the acquisition dates of future EuroHPC systems requiring a particular performance level, since this may clash with market reality of available technologies. The performance could be set when a decision is taken for the acquisition. In addition, the expected “performance” of the supercomputers should be flexibly defined, for example as a combination of computing power, application performance gains, expected ranking in world-class supercomputing categories, etc. ·More flexibility in the resource allocation of the EuroHPC systems: By the end of 2020, the available computing power at the Union level will increase almost eight-fold. There will then be a need for more choice and flexibility when allocating the EuroHPC computing resources, notably by considering new user requirements taking advantage of novel computing architectures (see next Chapter). Currently, on the advice of INFRAG, the EuroHPC JU Governing Board is drawing up more flexible resource allocation policies and priority allocation. Criteria under consideration include different access policies for scientific and industrial players; direct access possibilities for key European projects and initiatives without submitting a call for expression of interest (e.g., for HPC Centres of Excellence, HPC Competence Centres or other key EuroHPC projects), priority access for crisis management situations, etc. ·Well-defined access policies for the industrial/commercial use of the EuroHPC infrastructure that would enable the full exploitation of the EuroHPC capabilities in either pre-competitive research access, or in commercial terms of use. In addition, they would need to consider an enhanced quality of service, and the usability, trust, and security needs that industrial users require to access secure HPC resources. ·A clearer framework for collaboration with PRACE and GEANT. Specific arrangements may need to be established with PRACE for the tasks related to the allocation of the access time to the JU’s systems, for training and dissemination activities, and for developing a fully cloudified and federated HPC service and data infrastructure in Europe. Similarly, the EuroHPC JU could make use of the experience of GEANT for procuring dedicated connectivity for the EuroHPC supercomputers. ·A better definition of the different contributions to the activities of EuroHPC. For example, there is a need to further define the in-kind contributions of the Participating States and of the Private Members to the EuroHPC JU; and to better define the costs that EuroHPC can/cannot support for the acquisition and operations of supercomputers. ·More flexibility in the contribution of Private Members and other private actors to the activities of the EuroHPC JU, notably by including novel forms of cooperation, for example co-funding specific HPC infrastructure for industrial use. 3.HPC in a fast evolving environment This chapter identifies the evolution of key market, socio-economic and technological drivers that will affect the way HPC is developing world-wide and in the Union in the next 5-7 years. Part of this evolution is provided in the Vision Paper prepared by the EuroHPC JU Industrial and Scientific Advisory Board XLV . The chapter analyses in particular the following main drivers:

·The increasing importance of HPC for a wide range of applications ·The HPC market drivers ·The evolution of the user requirements (from science and industry) ·The convergence of HPC with AI and related technologies ·The evolution of supercomputing technologies ·New computing paradigms: Neuromorphic and Quantum computing ·The training and skills required in the next decade ·The new Political Guidelines for the period 2020-2025 3.1 The increasing importance of HPC for a wide range of applications During the last decade, political leaders in the developed countries have recognized the key importance of HPC-powered applications to help transform their economies and societies. Mastering HPC applications has become indispensable to advancing science, boosting industrial competitiveness, improving the quality of daily life for citizens, and reinforcing national security and technological autonomy. Excellence in the development and use of applications exploiting the supercomputing capabilities will be a major global driver for HPC. More than 800 HPC applications are used across all scientific fields, branches of government and virtually all industries and sectors, and Europe has traditionally been a world leader in this domain4. Several of the most used HPC codes are European (e.g. FOAM for computational fluid dynamics, GROMACS for molecular dynamics , VASP and Quantum Expresso for quantum materials modelling, Simulia Abaqus for finite element analysis and computer-aided engineering). European companies have pioneered the industrial use of HPC applications such as crash test codes in automotive, in-silico drug design and testing in pharma, or computer aided design in aerospace. The importance of HPC applications as a key driver can be illustrated as follows: HPC and the data revolution The convergence of HPC, Artificial Intelligence (including Machine and Deep Learning), big data and high performance data analytics (HPDA), and Cloud are already and will continue to be the main innovation drivers in the “data revolution”, creating entirely new possibilities for HPC-powered applications to extract useful and usable knowledge from the huge amount of raw data produced every day. HPC are increasingly becoming the “engine” that powers such data revolution, and a key element to fulfil the ambition of putting Europe in the driving seat of the global data economy. Section 3.4 analyses in further detail the convergence of HPC with Artificial Intelligence and related technologies. HPC and industry’s innovation potential HPC is a mainstream technology for the digital transformation of European industry. The use of HPC applications and tools is expanding to all industries as it becomes more accessible with today's and future broadband networks. HPC applications have traditionally enabled industrial sectors that are “computationally aware” like manufacturing to move up into higher value products and services. In particular, the use of HPC applications and services over the cloud will make it significantly easier for SMEs that do not have the financial means to invest in their in-house HPC development to develop and produce better products and services. HPC and scientific leadership HPC is now firmly established as the third pillar of modern research, alongside theory and experimentation. HPC applications have become an essential component in nearly every field of scientific research, thanks to steadily increasing computing power and widespread availability of HPC infrastructure, in particular since the 1990s. The applications of HPC in science are countless: fundamental physics, advancing the frontiers of knowledge of matter or exploring the universe; in material sciences, designing new critical components for the pharmaceutical or energy sectors; in fluid dynamics and adaptive control problems for the design of airplanes or planning of smart cities; in modelling the atmospheric and oceanic phenomena at planetary level, etc. It is probably in the field of life sciences and medicine where the tremendous impact of bioinformatics is very visible, for example in understanding the generation and evolution of epidemics and diseases and their early detection and treatment. Supercomputers will be essential for the success of the European “1+ Million Genomes” initiative launched in 2018 XLVI aiming to creating a data space with access to at least 1 million sequenced genomes in the EU by 2022. Supercomputers will make possible for example the fast identification of genetic disease variants by processing billions of DNA sequences, or the screening of hundreds of billions of molecules in a few hours (rather than months or years) to identify potential candidates for a treatment or a vaccine. HPC’s role in societal Challenges and policy making

Citizens expect sustained improvements in their everyday life, while at the same time society is confronted with an increasing number of complex challenges – at the local urban and rural level as well as at the planetary scale. HPC applications are a strategic resource for policy-making, helping us to understand our ever-changing world, and providing a much-needed evidence for designing efficient solutions in many of the global challenges. The inter-disciplinary nature of HPC and the wide range of applications provides policy makers with powerful tools in critical areas, for example: Weather and Climate change; Health, demographic change and wellbeing; Secure, clean and efficient energy; Smart, green and integrated urban planning; Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine research and the bio-economy; or crisis management. HPC’s role in the Union’s technological autonomy and security Supercomputers are essential for national security, defence and technological autonomy. They are already used to increase cyber-security and in the fight against cyber-criminality, in particular for the protection of critical infrastructures. The exponential rise of the economic losses associated to cybercrime (expected to reach EUR 5.4 trillion by 2021) reveals the need for developing secure applications and infrastructures that can anticipate and promptly react to an ever increasing menace. In cyber-security, HPC-powered applications will unlock the power of security tools thanks to their capability to speed up the AI- and machine learning (ML)-driven complex software. Hybrid techniques combining HPC and AI (in particular ML techniques) will increasingly be used for a more effective threat analysis and security event correlation, contributing to developing self-healing and self-adaptive cyber-security systems: detecting strange systems behaviour, insider threats and electronic fraud; detecting and fighting very early cyber-attack patterns (in a matter of few hours, instead of a few days) or potential misuse of systems; or taking automated and immediate actions even before hostile events occur. HPC applications in combination with AI will be a game changer in defence and security. Both the US and China have already linked closely HPC and AI developments in their defence programmes. The US President Trump's executive order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence XLVII makes explicit the HPC-AI link, asking his administration to prioritise the allocation of high-performance computing resources for AI-related applications. 3.2 HPC Market drivers The impact of HPC in the most developed economies of the world is impressive. HPC has a growing contribution to the digitisation of critical industrial sectors that account for c. 53% of the Union’s GDP. Investments in HPC have shown particularly strong growth rates in recent years. The overall HPC market is expected to reach EUR 39.6 billion in 2023, including expenditure in HPC servers, storage, software and technical support. In particular, expenditure in HPC servers will grow from EUR 12.33 billion in 2018 to EUR 17.9 billion in 2023. Europe maintains a relatively constant share of around one-quarter (c. 26%) of the overall spending in all categories of HPC systems, while the USA continues as world leader in HPC investments. The main market developments can be summarised as follows: Strategic Investments in HPC ·Return on investments (ROI) on HPC is yielding excellent returns in the EU: on average, every Euro invested in 2018 returned EUR 43.2 in profits or costs savings and EUR 260 in revenues. ·Spending levels in the strategically important high-end market of systems over EUR 2.2 million, are an important measure of HPC leadership. The current situation of the EU is not very satisfactory, amounting to less than one third of the US and less than half of China supercomputing power in the world top-500 supercomputers. The exascale race and the ICT market ·Exascale performance is now driving investments in the high-end segment of supercomputers. Between 2020 and 2025, the global spending on pre- and full-exascale supercomputers is expected to total about EUR 8 billion. ·Advances in exascale HPC technologies will affect a market worth EUR 1 trillion, out of the EUR 5 trillion broader ICT market. For example, low-power processors and accelerators for high-end computing will drive developments in technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), cybersecurity, AI, robotics and augmented and virtual reality. ·US vendors have almost 100% of the world-wide processor market, with Intel holding more than 95% in several categories of processors (CPU, GPU, etc.). In the HPC sector, Intel’s share is lower, and around 95% of accelerators in the top 500 supercomputers are from NVIDIA. ·The race to exascale and the convergence of HPC with AI and cloud technologies is changing the market, putting more emphasis on low-power processors, accelerators and GPGPUs computing in data servers, which fosters the use of ARM-based technologies and allows US companies like AMD and NVIDIA to get an increasing market share. ·In the “top-500”, Chinese companies sell around 65% of the systems. Chinese indigenous processors are present in only a few of those systems, but it is expected that Chinese technology for the exascale supercomputers will likely enter the market in the next few years. ·Solutions based on open-hardware (in particular RISC-V) are gaining momentum as a credible alternative to the proprietary solutions for processors and accelerators across the computing continuum. Any company can use RISC-V without any fear of losing access in the future (for instance due to commercial bans on technology exports). RISC-V will create opportunities for non-US companies to break the almost monopoly situation in chip design. (e.g., European RISC-V accelerators in the EPI project and other activities). European HPC technology supply and market ·On HPC supply (all segments), the US was the world leader in 2018 with 67% of global HPC sales, followed by China (16.2%), Japan (3.5%) and the EU (c. 1.1%). No European company supplies key components like general processors or accelerators.

·Participation of EU vendors in the global HPC market is still weak. Out of all “top-500” supercomputers, only 28 (5.6%) are supplied by EU manufacturers. 26 were supplied by one main EU vendor (Bull-Atos), with 19 of these 26 supercomputers purchased by clients in the EU and only seven clients globally. ·Out of the 79 HPC systems in the top-500 list that are located in the EU, only 21 (26.5%) were supplied by European manufacturers. This means that almost 75% of the European HPC market is being supplied by non-EU manufacturers. The markets for HPC, Artificial Intelligence and Cloud are converging ·Expenditure related to the use of HPDA and AI will be the fastest-growing market segment for HPC. By 2023, the overall HPDA-AI market for HPC servers is expected to reach about EUR 5.76 billion, or about 32% of the EUR 18 billion worldwide market for HPC server systems with a five-year CAGR of 15.4%. The subset of HPC-based AI (machine/deep learning and other) is expected to reach EUR 2.43 billion by 2023 for a 2018-2023 CAGR of 29.5%. ·Worldwide spending on public cloud services and infrastructure is expected to reach EUR 333 billion by 2022. The use of cloud for HPC workloads will jump substantially in the next few years, especially due to the growth in hybrid cloud deployments. Worldwide, the proportion of sites exploiting cloud computing to address parts of their HPC workloads has grown to over 70% in 2019, helping the "democratisation of HPC". By 2023, expenditure in cloud usage fees for HPC will reach around EUR 7.5 billion. 3.3 Evolution of user requirements In the next 5-10 years, the requirements of private and public users for supercomputing and data infrastructures are expected to evolve at a rapid pace. An analysis carried out in the Vision Paper45 shows that users require a computing and data environment allowing a seamless access and execution of complex workflows across the European hyper-connected supercomputing network. This environment would serve interdisciplinary user communities using algorithms and data for generating knowledge. To this purpose, future supercomputing systems would need to provide many new computing and data applications and services, such as the following: ·Data-driven computing and compute-intensive applications: User demand is now split almost equally between these two workload types, with many areas utilising combinations of both, e.g. engineering. ·Big-data management: Storage and I/O requirements are expected to grow even faster than computing needs, in particular for data-driven and deep learning applications. These requirements would have to be coupled with provisioning of a large-scale end-to-end data e-infrastructure to collect, handle, analyse, visualise, and disseminate data. ·Real-time and interactive computing: future applications that depend on human intervention will require real-time and/or interactive computing, with examples including product design, medical applications, smart cities, smart grids and digital twins. ·Urgent computing is closely related to real-time and interactive computing, the main difference being its lack of predictability. Examples are typically disaster management and decision support in the event of e.g. floods, blackouts or traffic jams. The design of any future exascale and post-exascale supercomputer would need to be based on a co-design approach that considers enhanced synergies between technology suppliers, industrial and research users (in particular, advanced early adopters of new technologies) and algorithm and application developers. Evolution of industrial user requirements One of the critical success factors of HPC usage in industry is the capability to adapt to the specific industrial needs, which differ significantly from those of scientific users. Regarding access to computing resources, the main differences are time and access procedures, quality and type of services, security and data protection, and intellectual property: Academic users have longer research timescales, usually months or years. They can expect access decisions months after applying. In stark contrast, industrial users expect short access time to computing resources to reduce lead-time (from the demand to the final delivery), with access to be primarily provided through the cloud. They also expect flexibility for adaptation to small changes, support to access configuration and/or set-up, and dedicated “services” and commodity for managing peaks of computer demand. Industry also requires intellectual property protection for the results and, most importantly, data security and confidentiality. This concerns the secure management of the whole data lifecycle: from the initial datasets, to intermediate datasets produced during the computing/simulation process and the final result. Finally, industry players require guarantees of safe access to supercomputing capabilities when developing new industrial capabilities based on confidential studies. Some additional points identified in the Vision Paper45 are the following: ·Large companies have a unique role in the HPC ecosystem, as they purchase many of the world top-500 computers. They are generally already involved in HPC and collaborate in many areas with public research. Many of them are already accessing supercomputers of petaflop performance and their main requirement is for a flexible, competitive system tailored to their expected use. ·SMEs: Most European SMEs (and start-ups) are just moving to numerical simulation and data analytics. They generally need support, training and coaching to switch into the new HPC-powered world, with specific structures and activities. For all industrial players there is an urgent need to adapt software codes to new computing architectures. In some cases this can be difficult due to certification issues (e.g. airplane simulations). Industry also needs to develop innovative applications capable of exploiting not only the new architectures but also new paradigms (in particular AI-based). An example of the radical transformative role of HPC is digital twins.

Industry and digital twins: A new generation of digital twins requires the powerful, agile computing capabilities provided by HPC to facilitate global mobility and collaboration, combining different technologies such as mixed reality tools, cloud rendering, real-time simulation and analysis, IoT and deep learning/AI. New HPC-powered digital twins are able to significantly accelerate product development and manufacturing processes, by generating digital representations of their end-to-end business processes while providing new ways of collaborating simultaneously in the virtual and physical world. Finally, one of the biggest barriers that industry users face to efficient uptake and use of HPC is the need for wide outreach and dissemination of the concrete benefits that HPC technologies can bring to them. Entrepreneurs will be encouraged to invest into HPC if demonstrated with successful business plans, innovations, etc. A proactive engagement at local, regional and EU level will have to be undertaken to effectively engage with individual enterprises, industrial hubs, and SME networks and associations and, in particular, the network of Digital Innovation Hubs and the Enterprise Europe Network. XLVIII In conclusion, industry users have specific usability, trust, and security requirements and need secure HPC resources and HPC-powered platforms for industrial innovation. Any future HPC initiative should address the following: specific access portals (e.g. cloud-based access), easy to-use tools (e.g. for big data analytics), secure application workflows between industry premises and a supercomputer, an appropriate high-bandwidth network infrastructure in all European countries, etc. An important aspect is the certification of HPC centres as reliable partners for industry, covering the aspects of usability, trust and security. 3.4 The convergence of HPC with AI The convergence of HPC and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is critical for applications that rely on big data and high performance data analytics (HPDA). Exascale computing in combination with AI will have an enormous impact on the way computing is done. By 2018, the amount of computational power used to train the largest AI models had doubled every 3.4 months since 2012. XLIX AI and HPC are by their nature synergetic: for example, HPC simulations generate huge amounts of data and AI techniques can make sense of it. Conversely, HPC can be used to explain and understand AI methods, building trust in the decisions made by AI. Annexes I and II present more details on key synergies and the market evidence on the convergence of these two technologies. One of the factors facilitating this convergence is the need to deal with the explosion of data. Besides the general growth of available data in the digital universe (e.g. more than 460 exabytes, i.e., 1018 bytes, will be generated every day by 2025) L , some key applications will require both extreme-scale computing capabilities and AI-techniques to handle the huge volumes of data. The following examples illustrate the magnitude of the challenge: Square Kilometre Array (SKA): the data production of SKA is estimated at 11 exabytes daily, i.e. the same amount of data in a day as the entire planet produces in a year today. LI Copernicus: Seven Sentinel satellites already in orbit deliver tens of terabytes of data every day. Six Copernicus services deliver information products from which ocean, atmosphere and climate models outputs are based on HPC computing: Copernicus is the biggest provider of Earth observation data in the world. LII Genome sequencing: As a single human genome takes up 100 gigabytes of storage space , and more and more genomes are sequenced, an estimated 40 exabytes of storage capacity will be required for human genomics by 2025. LIII The High-Luminosity CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the successor to the current LHC, is planned to come online after 2025. By this time, the total computing capacity required by the experiments is expected to be 50-100 times greater than today, with data storage needs expected to be in the order of exabytes. LIV In the more common version of the pairing, “HPC for AI”, AI uses an ecosystem that requires HPC, from embedded systems, to edge computing systems and large computer centres, all interconnected in a secure fabric that exchanges and processes huge amounts of data. Autonomously driving vehicles are a perfect example: embedded low-power HPC processors will enable real-time decisions in the vehicle, while less urgent decisions will be made by interaction with edge computers. More strategic decisions will require complex AI-powered models and simulations to be run on centralised HPC systems that feed on data provided by vehicles and edge computers. A symmetrical topic of importance is “AI for HPC”. This is less well developed, but the new capabilities offered by AI will improve the development and deployment of HPC technologies and solutions. In the traditional use of HPC for simulation, model-based approaches are being challenged or replaced by hybrid modelling / AI techniques across many science and engineering fields including physics, chemistry, and molecular biology. For example, machine learning is used to control and drive complex HPC simulations, making them faster, more accurate, and self-improving over time. 3.5 Evolution of supercomputing technologies The trends in supercomputing for the next decade and beyond will be driven by disaggregation, enabled by network improvements, and even greater specialisation, as necessitated by the end of Moore’s Law. LV This will be enabled by an open source computing platform (hardware and software). Big data and AI techniques are key drivers in the global race to master the next supercomputing frontier of exascale performance. The next generation of supercomputers now under development in the USA and elsewhere is being optimised with new processor types, memories, software and system designs to maximise HPDA and AI workflows. An added benefit of this trend is that dedicated HPC architectures designed to support such workflows and workloads would reduce the computing time for many tasks and would therefore yield a more sustainable energy footprint. The whole ICT technology landscape, driven by an exponential increase in big data and AI services, displays performance shortcomings and limits similar to traditional HPC-technologies, and ultimately related to the slowing of the Moore's law. As a consequence, both big data and HPC markets are shifting toward a new hardware landscape, where specialisation can be used to mitigate technology limits and meet the increasing power and performance needs of applications (HPC and non-HPC). The advent of open source software, and by extending the boundaries of open technology to all aspects of the HPC system including hardware, provides the focus, flexibility and freedom to build new, specialized systems that can meet new power and performance requirements….45 Some of the main trends can be summarised as follows: ·System architectures: Specialisation, heterogeneity, modularity and composability will be the dominant paradigms at all levels of computer technology, allowing customised and cost-effective supercomputing architectures that optimise the use of resources for a class of applications. The future architectures of the exascale and post-exascale era will be optimised by default to support heterogeneous modelling, simulation and AI tasks. “The heterogeneous architecture that underlies El Capitan is actually uniquely able to host both artificial intelligence machine learning applications, and modelling and simulation….We are already starting to think how to combine them to accelerate our ability to simulate beyond the factor of ten that the hardware alone is going to give us with El Capitan.” LVI ·Edge/fog computing: Further complexity arises with the federation of computing resources between HPC systems and the "edge", consisting of datacentres, cloud computing services, local clusters and data generation instruments as well as the IoT devices (e.g. sensors, actors, local computing systems). On-the-fly calculations at network-level can reduce the need for expensive data transport.

·High-speed intra-networking: This is at the core of HPC system design. Increasingly large systems require optical connections to meet the large distances between the systems racks. Furthermore, smart network technology such as adaptive routing, dynamical network reconfiguration, network virtualisation, and in-network computations to reduce data movement and to speed-up collective operations will become of high importance. ·Reconfigurable computing: Being able to orchestrate the varieties of computing resources will enable “reconfigurable computing” at the system level that is able to adapt to the requirements of individual users. Along with virtualisation and containerisation, each user can be assigned a “virtual cluster” meeting his/her specific needs. ·Energy efficiency. Moore’s law implies that energy and waste heat densities grow exponentially too. New supercomputers need more electricity and have demanding requirements, i.e. 5-17 Megawatts (MW) today and up to 50 MW in the near future, and switching loads of at least 10 MW on and off in milliseconds. Power management, energy efficiency, cooling and recuperation of waste energy are key research fields to reduce the operating costs of the systems. 3.6 New computing paradigms Neuromorphic and Quantum Computing New emerging computing paradigms will gradually find their way into the traditional supercomputing infrastructure, in the beginning as specific accelerating processing components for certain applications, and later on as main computing elements. Technologies that will progressively find their place in the computing continuum include CMOS scaling, RISC-V, 2.5/3D stacking, non-volatile memory (NVM), silicon photonics, memristive devices, optical systems, analogue computing, dataflow architectures, “in memory” computing, and more. The effective use of non-traditional computing architectures, like quantum computers, neuromorphic systems, digital annealers and data flow machines, requires close coupling and interaction with HPC machines that can only be realised at system level in a modular and composable manner. Two novel computing approaches that are starting to show interesting complementarities with HPC are neuromorphic and quantum: ·Neuromorphic computing The development of AI, in particular deep learning, has led to huge interest in neuromorphic architectures, which are inspired by a theoretical model of a neuron, or “simulated annealing” processors. As more and more applications (or a part of an application) are mapped to this paradigm, it is worth developing specific circuits that implement only the operations and data paths mandatory for this architecture. ·Quantum computing Quantum technology uses the properties of quantum effects – the interactions of molecules, atoms, and even smaller particles, known as quantum objects. Quantum computing is based on quantum bits (qubits), making it possible to compute millions of possibilities in parallel, instead of one at a time as classical computers do. Quantum computers could deliver an impressive processing power for a given class of computing problems, namely those related to prime number factoring or to large optimisation problems (representing a combinatorial explosion of computing possibilities). They would make it possible to solve currently unsolvable problems such as the design of new materials and drugs, the development of new medicines (conducting virtual drug trials or analysing cancer cells to develop personalised treatments), cryptographic solutions, complex logistics and scheduling problems, risk analysis calculations in finance, etc. First quantum systems have already been built implementing up to 53 qubits. However, several major technological advances will be needed to build a universal quantum computer of millions of qubits, which may not exist for at least one or two decades. Europe is investing major R&D efforts in the Quantum Technologies Flagship now supported under Horizon 2020 and as of 2021 under Horizon Europe. Quantum computing projects of the Flagship are developing some of the most advanced physical platforms in the world. They are aiming to reach 50 to 100 qubits by mid-2021 and at least 500 qubits by 2025, using different quantum technologies: trapped ion quantum computers, superconducting quantum computers, and quantum computer prototypes based on other technologies such as photonics and semiconductors, in combination with built-in quantum error-correction approaches. They are also developing quantum software and programming libraries, and applications addressing industrial use cases and solving other concrete problems. A good overview of the European roadmap in quantum computing technologies is provided in the 2020 strategic research agenda of the Quantum Technologies Flagship. LVII The software and applications challenge Europe is the world leader in algorithmic and software development in many disciplines. To maintain this leadership and foster scientific breakthroughs, innovations will require significant investments in new algorithms and software optimisation tools, in order to fully exploit the potential of a modern HPC infrastructure. One of the most critical aspects to consider in the exascale era is that most applications will require new methods and workflows to exploit the available resources. Some applications will continue to scale exceptionally well, while others are converging with data-driven applications and machine-learning-type needs. Composability is the key: new approaches will integrate codes and software components in complex and scalable workflows. New programming environments and frameworks will enable the development of composable codes with portable performance, and a higher level of abstraction, reducing the costs of integrating new paradigms and closely matching architectural features of increasingly diversified and specialised hardware platforms to come. A significant effort will have to be provided for new algorithmic developments. Next-generation computing requires an ambitious programme of algorithm development integrated with infrastructure design/development and over longer timescales. It also requires the critical system software stack with European components (i.e. a “European Open System Stack”) to best exploit the underlying architecture. This European Open System Stack will create an open source environment for both hardware and software components, fostering access and enabling the development of co-designed systems. This will also encourage additional investments to generate new IPs in Europe (including licensed IPs), for example, open software and repositories for scientific and industrial use, system tools and development environments (e.g. debuggers, compilers, performance tools). In the longer term, continued application leadership will use novel computing approaches (e.g. quantum, neuromorphic) for which the necessary fundamental mathematical and computer science algorithms are not in place yet. Special attention should be given to the support of co-design applications where traditional programming environments are extended to include new programming and performance tools and libraries for quantum computing. 3.7 Training and skills for the next decade The Impact Assessment of the Digital Europe programme LVIII , LIX identified several systemic issues in the ICT field, and by extension, in HPC: high demand for ICT workers, difficulties in recruiting ICT specialists, insufficient funding for the digital reskilling, etc. Europe needs a qualitative and quantitative leap in the education of its workforce in order to make it fit for the digital age. There are clear indications that workforce availability and qualifications may be the key bottleneck in the industrial and public sectors as well as in the academic system. The efforts of PRACE since its start in 2010 have been important but much more needs to be done to alleviate the skills deficit.

Making the vision of European leadership in digital and HPC a reality will rely on attracting the best talents, upgrading competences and skills throughout the European ecosystem, and providing sufficient support to strengthen the knowledge base of HPC in Europe, with new competences, skills and profiles combining software expertise with understanding in industry of frontier research in science and innovation. For example, to take full advantage of HPC, Europe must train more researchers: there is a lack of computational scientists choosing to focus on HPC. We still lack a practical strategy for integrating HPC into the already crowded scientific and engineering curricula of European universities. Targeted outreach, training and skill development actions, organised as part of the higher education system, are needed to attract human resources to HPC and increase the workforce skills and engineering knowledge in the European HPC ecosystem. Such actions would need to cover, for example, generic and domain-specific HPC knowledge, computational science as a career choice, and application and code development. An important factor for the success of these measures is the accessibility at local level to skills development actions. Knowledge and expertise in advanced digital fields is not available in all regions in Europe. The combination of activities at both European and national/local level should ensure that access to development of such expertise is made available in every Member State and its regions. 3.8 New political guidelines and Commission priorities for the period 2019-2024 Actions linked to HPC in the years to come will have to take into account the policy priorities highlighted in President von der Leyen’s political guidelines LX for the period 2019-2024: ·A Europe fit for the digital age – achieving technological autonomy: The HPC strategy should contribute to the Union’s digital autonomy. It should ensure that Europe develops an autonomous supply of critical advanced computing infrastructures, technologies, and knowledge, and it should help provide the supercomputing and data capacities that many key scientific and industrial applications need to fully exploit the data revolution, in close combination with other key digital technologies, e.g. AI, HPDA, cybersecurity and blockchain. ·An economy that works for people – Digital transformation of the economy and European leadership in the data economy: Europe’s HPC strategy should aim to achieve excellence and maintain European world leadership in key HPC applications for European industry (including SMEs), science, and the public sector. It should support the next generation of industrial environments (e.g. using big data analytics, AI and IoT for advanced digital twins) and enable industrial HPC codes, applications and software to exploit the performance of current and future supercomputers. The strategy should also address the digital divide, ensuring access to the European HPC ecosystem wherever users are located across the EU and supporting Member States in providing local support for HPC competence, knowledge and skills. This includes access to supercomputing infrastructures, services and solutions adapted to industry’s needs (including SMEs), easing and fostering the transition towards a wider uptake of HPC in Europe. ·A European Green Deal – addressing global challenges: The strategy should contribute to addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in particular our environmental, climate, and other big societal challenges as outlined by the Communication on European Green Deal LXI . The Destination Earth initiative5 will bring together European scientific and industrial expertise to develop a very high precision digital model of the Earth. This initiative will offer a digital modelling platform to visualize, monitor and forecast natural and human activity on the planet in support of sustainable development, again supporting Europe’s efforts for a better environment as set out in the Green Deal. As required by Destination Earth, HPC-powered simulations and applications will provide the tools to design efficient solutions transforming the increasing number of complex environmental challenges into opportunities for social innovation and economic growth. The EuroHPC JU is already setting the pace worldwide in the development of low-power technologies for HPC that can be applied in larger sectors of the ICT landscape, helping to reduce the carbon footprint of ICT solutions, for example low-power processors and accelerators. Greener computing should be targeted with energy-efficient supercomputers and data centres, using for example dynamic power-saving and re-use techniques like advanced cooling and recycling of heat produced. ·A stronger Europe in the world: HPC is a strategic priority for Europe and will be key to its national security, defence and technological autonomy. Particularly in combination with AI and cybersecurity technologies, HPC will be crucial in helping the Union respond to diverse and unpredictable security challenges. For example, supercomputers are essential for nuclear simulation and modelling, protection of critical infrastructures, new cryptographic solutions, and the fight against terrorism and crime (including cyber-criminality and cyber-war). In addition, the Commission presented in February 2020 its ideas and actions for shaping Europe’s digital future LXII , in which the EuroHPC JU activities can have an important impact: ·Europe as a trusted digital leader: The HPC strategy should contribute to the Union’s leadership in digital technologies that work for people, for a fair and competitive economy, and for a sustainable society, as outlined by the Commission’s communications on “A New Industrial Strategy for Europe” LXIII and “An SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe” LXIV . HPC is a key technology contributing to the Union’s strategy to become an innovation-driven, value-based and inclusive digital economy and society. ·Europe as a leader in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence: HPC is a critical tool to building trust in complex AI-based solutions, for example with massive simulations to evaluate the associated risks and increase transparency and traceability of such solutions, or with supercomputer-based support to certification and other features such as respect of fundamental rights or non-discrimination. ·Europe as a leader in the data economy: HPC is the “engine” that powers the data revolution, and a key element to fulfil the ambition of putting Europe in the driving seat of the global data economy as outlined by the European strategy for data1. Next generation HPC infrastructures and technologies are key to support trustworthy and energy efficient cloud-based solutions and for the exploitation of European public data spaces for the benefit of businesses, researchers and public administrations. Finally, the Staff Working Document “Identifying Europe's recovery needs” LXV accompanying the Commission Communication “Europe's moment: Repair and Prepare for the Next Generation”3 identifies the HPC ecosystem as one of the key digital value chains with potential to boost productivity and innovation that requires considerable additional investments. Such investments in the HPC ecosystem will be one of the priorities of the European recovery instruments (“Next Generation EU”) outlined in the Communication “The EU budget powering the recovery plan for Europe”. LXVI 4.The Union’s HPC strategic approach for the next MFF (2021-2027) 4.1 Rationale for a new mission of the EuroHPC JU in the next MFF The Union needs to continue its ambitious strategic approach in HPC to support the building and optimal use of the digital capacities that underpin economic prosperity and social development, and bring the benefits of digital transformation to all European citizens and businesses across the Union territory, including in less developed areas. During the past few years, political leaders in Europe, but also the USA and China, have recognised the ability of leadership-class supercomputers to help transform economies, societies, and understanding of the world. HPC has an increasing role in advancing science, boosting industrial innovation, and improving people’s daily lives. Europe's scientific capabilities, industrial competitiveness and technological autonomy depend on unrestricted access to leading HPC and data technologies and full control over world-class infrastructures and data, in order to keep pace with the growing demands and complexity of the problems to be solved. In particular: ·Impact on society: HPC is a strategic resource for policy-making. It helps understand an ever-changing world and provide policy-makers with the tools to design efficient solutions addressing many complex global challenges such as global warming and climate change. HPC is an essential technology for transforming these challenges into innovation opportunities for growth and jobs. For example, HPC can be used to find ways of providing secure, clean and efficient energy (e.g., evaluation of carbon reduction measures, simulators for fusion energy, design of performant photovoltaic materials or optimising turbines for electricity production); smart, green and integrated urban planning (water and air quality, pollution control, traffic planning); and food security, sustainable agriculture and the bio-economy (optimising the production of food and analysing sustainability factors such as plagues and diseases control, etc.). ·Impact on economy: The convergence of HPC with AI, big data, HPDA and the cloud, is a main innovation driver in the data economy. It creates entirely new possibilities to extract useful and usable knowledge from the huge amount of raw data produced every day. The computing power of HPC is the “engine” that powers the data economy. HPC is an enabler of novel leading-edge technologies, applications and solutions that open new opportunities for digitising European science, industry and the public administrations, benefiting all areas of the economy in all regions of Europe. Economic sectors relying on HPC include manufacturing, health and pharmaceuticals, automotive, oil and gas, aviation, and chemicals: these account for 53.4% of the Union’s GDP, encompassing EUR 7.56 trillion in value.

·Impact on digital autonomy: Given the impact that digital technologies are having in our economy and society, the EU needs to ensure its strategic digital autonomy, in ensuring access to essential supercomputing infrastructures and state-of-the-art HPC technologies. The availability of world-class HPC resources and technological knowledge in Europe will encourage researchers and innovators to stay in Europe and ensure that data produced by EU research and industry is processed here, instead of moving to regions where high data and computing capabilities are available. ·Impact on industry’s innovation potential: HPC is today a mainstream technology for the digitisation of industry. The use of HPC, in particular combined with AI and cloud technologies, is expanding to all industries as current and future broadband networks make it more accessible. HPC has enabled “computationally aware” industrial sectors like engineering and manufacturing to move up into higher value products and services. Moreover, HPC can play a radical transformative role in industry, paving the way to novel applications, for example, a new generation of digital twins using the powerful, agile computing capabilities of HPC to facilitate new ways of combining the virtual and physical worlds. ·Impact on science: Over the past half century, the new domain of scientific computing has become the third pillar of modern science, extending and complementing theory and experimentation. The applicat