COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Accompanying the document COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS High-Performance Computing: Europe's place in a Global Race
Date: 2012-03-21
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU research policy, applied research, computer systems, innovation, new technology, scientific cooperation, software

EUROPEAN COMMISSION 

Brussels, 21.3.2012  
SWD(2012) 60 final 

Addendum 
DTS accompagnant le document COM(2012) 45 final 
du 15.2.2012 

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

Accompanying the document 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS  

High-Performance Computing: Europe's place in a Global Race 

{COM(2012) 45 final} 

 
 
 
 
  
  
 
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

Accompanying the document 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS  

High-Performance Computing: Europe's place in a Global Race 

 
 
  
Disclaimer: 
This report commits only the Commission's services involved in its preparation and does not 
prejudge the final form of any decision to be taken by the Commission 

 
 
Table of Contents 

Section 1: Problem Definition............................................................................................ 4 
The main challenges for High-Performance Computing (HPC) in Europe are: ............ 4 
The Rationale for HPC................................................................................................... 4 
Base-line data for HPC in Europe .................................................................................. 7 
The HPC condition in the EU ........................................................................................ 9 
The causes underlying the HPC decline in Europe ........................................................ 9 
Need for public intervention ........................................................................................ 10 
Why intervention at the EU level? ............................................................................... 11 

Section 2: Objectives........................................................................................................ 12 
General Policy Objective ............................................................................................. 12 
Specific Objectives....................................................................................................... 12 

Section 3: Envisaged Measures........................................................................................ 16 
The current state of affairs ........................................................................................... 16 
Act in a decisive way to ensure Europe's competitiveness in and through HPC ......... 16 

Section 4: Analysis of Proposed Measures ...................................................................... 19 
Is continuing the Status Quo an option?....................................................................... 19 
Expected impact of proposed measures ....................................................................... 21 
Additional observations................................................................................................ 22 

Section 5: Monitoring and Evaluation ............................................................................. 23 

Section 6: Stakeholder Consultations............................................................................... 25 
Key public consultation documents and summaries of replies .................................... 25 
Key studies and work carried out by external consultants ........................................... 25 
Conclusions from HPC expert consultation meetings.................................................. 26 
Stakeholder Survey Results.......................................................................................... 27 

Annexes............................................................................................................................ 29 
Technical background material: ................................................................................... 29 

 
 
 Section 1: Problem Definition 

The main challenges for High-Performance Computing (HPC)1 in Europe are:  
•  Europe  spends  substantially  less  than  other  nations  on  acquiring  high-end  computing 
systems,  software  and  services;  as  a  result,  the  HPC  resources  available  are  diminishing 
across Europe, while other nations (e.g. China and Russia) are gaining ground 

•  Fragmentation of efforts across Europe 

•  Pre-Commercial  Procurement  (PCP)  is  not  strategically  used  for  developing  advanced 

HPC systems 

•  Interaction  between  industry  and  academia  on  the  exploitation  of  high-end  computing 

systems and services is rather limited  

•  Lack of advanced HPC experimental facilities 

•  Too small workforce that is well trained in super computing 

•  European HPC vendors experiencing difficulties selling their products to the public sector 

of the US – while 95% of the European HPC systems are from US vendors 

The Rationale for HPC  

The case for HPC's importance for Europe can be made from four main perspectives:  

Industrial competitiveness 

•  Scientific leadership 
• 
•  National security  
•  Computing as a key technology, in the context of the global race towards exa-scale  

First, the race for leadership-class HPC systems is driven by the need to address societal and 
scientific  grand  challenges  more  effectively,  such  as  fighting  Alzheimer's  disease, 

1  There’s  no  fixed  definition  of  how  powerful  a  computer  needs  to  be  for  it  to  be  considered  as  ‘high 
performance’. This is because the performance of microprocessors has increased exponentially for many years, 
so any such definition is out of date quickly. It’s usual to consider a computer to be high performance if it uses 
multiple  processors  (tens,  hundreds  or  even  thousands)  connected  together  by  a  network  to  achieve  the 
performance well above that of a single processor. Using multiple processors in this way is sometimes called 
parallel computing. The best performing machines in 2010 use hundreds of thousands of processing cores and 
are capable of 1015 floating point operations per second (this is referred to as a ‘peta-flop'). This is 1000 times 
more than the most powerful machine delivered in 2000, which in turn was 1000 times more powerful than a 
decade  earlier.  Experts  predict  that  exa-scale  computers  (capable  of  1018  operations  per  second)  will  be  in 
existence by 2020.   

  High Performance Computing FAQ: 

www.planethpc.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48#Q1 

  The  term  high-performance  computing  (HPC)  refers  to  technical  computing  encompassing  computers  and 
software used by scientists, engineers, analysts, and other groups using computationally intensive modelling 
and simulation applications. Technical servers range from small servers costing less than € 5,000 to the large-
capability  machines  that  may  cost  a  hundred  million  Euros.  In  addition  to  scientific  and  engineering 
applications,  technical  computing  includes  related  markets/applications  areas  including  economic  analysis, 
financial  analysis,  animation,  server-based  gaming,  digital  content  creation  and  management,  business 
intelligence modelling, and national security applications.  

  In the context of this report, term supercomputer (or simply HPC system) is used to refer to HPC hardware 
priced  at € 375,000  and  above. High-performance  computing (HPC)  is used  in  this  Impact  Assessment  as a 
synonym  for  capability  leadership-class  computing,  high-end  computing,  supercomputing,  world-class 
computing, etc. to differentiate it from capacity distributed computing, cloud computing and compute servers 
that are of a more generic nature and are complementary to HPC systems 

4

 
 
                                                 
understanding  how  cholesterol  is  transported  in  our  body,  deciphering  the  human  brain, 
forecasting the evolution of climate, or preventing and managing large-scale catastrophes. 

Second,  HPC  is  also  driven  by  the  need  of  industry  to  innovate  in  products  and  services 
(designing  vehicles  and  airplanes,  developing  life-saving  new  drugs,  etc.).  97%  of  the 
industrial companies that have adopted HPC now consider it indispensable for their ability to 
innovate, compete, and survive2. HPC has enabled producers to reduce the development time 
(from 60 months to 24 months for a vehicle) and to save on physical prototyping costs (at the 
level of billions of Euros for Airbus and Boeing), increasing safety and reliability3. Hospitals 
in  Germany  routinely  use  HPC  to  predict  which  expectant  mothers  may  require  surgery  for 
Caesarean  births,  with  the  goal  of  avoiding  traditional,  riskier  last-minute  decisions  during 
childbirth.  Especially  for  small  and  medium  sized  enterprises,  access  to  HPC  consulting, 
modelling, simulation and product prototyping services is increasingly important.  

Third, HPC is strategic in the context of national security applications. Not only in the nuclear 
area where HPC has become an indispensable tool for simulation and modelling, but also in 
the context of cyber aspects of conflicts HPC systems play an important analytical role. In the 
context  of  this  report  this  aspect  is  referred  to  as  an  important  area  for  HPC,  but  it  is  not 
further  explored,  and  it  is  handled  differently  across  Member  States.  The  rationale  is  to 
acquire  and  maintain  competence  in  this  area  of  HPC  in  line  with  the  other  areas  of  HPC 
identified above. 

The  increasing  tilt  toward  HPC  as  an  R&D  method  is  related  to  the  fact  that  the  costs  of 
experimental ("live") science and engineering research have skyrocketed in the past decade. 
This has made HPC increasingly attractive from a financial point of view. IDC carried out a 
survey4  with  European  HPC  stakeholders  (67  respondents5)  where  every  one  of  the 
respondents said that HPC is "extremely important" (66%) or "important" (34%) for industrial 
competitiveness. These stakeholders' survey comments indicate that there is strong support for 
HPC  use  by  industry,  even  among  non-industrial  respondents.  Every  one  of  the  survey 
respondents agreed that HPC is "extremely important" or "important" for scientific leadership. 
Nearly  all  of  the  respondents  (94%)  rated  access  to  leading  HPC  systems  as  "extremely 
important"  (94%)  for  their  countries,  and  the  remaining  6%  considered  it  "important".  This 
represents a very strong block vote in favour  of  making  time  on  large HPC systems widely 
available in Europe. Similarly, 97% of the survey respondents said that access to leading HPC 
systems is "extremely important" (84%) or "important" (13%) for the EU's ability to compete 
in the global market place. 

But HPC is a costly undertaking: a single leadership-class supercomputer costs at least € 75 
million today, and a US government agency estimated the price for developing an exa-scale 
supercomputer6 at more than € 750 million 7.  

2  IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Final Report: 

page 15 

3  IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Final Report: 

page 26 

4  IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Interim Report: 

page 43 onwards 

5   Sample composition: 48% from HPC user organizations, 30% from HPC vendors (hardware, software, 

storage, services), 17% HPC industry experts, 9% from EU member states (overseeing and funding HPC 
initiatives) 

6  The HPC performance advances in these past decades have been remarkable. Gigaflops (billion calculations 
per  second)  were  achieved  in  1985,  teraflops  (trillion  calculations  per  second)  in  1997,  and  petaflops  (a  1 
followed by fifteen zeros) in 2008. The HPC community is now aiming for exa-scale computing calculations 
per second (a 1 followed by eighteen zeros). 

5

 
 
                                                 
Fourth,  the  move  to  exa-scale  computing  requires  a  complete  rethink  of  the  current  HPC 
architectures.  However,  the  challenges  faced  in  this  move  to  exa-scale  computing  apply 
equally to all actors around the globe. On the one hand, this provides a unique opportunity for 
Europe  to  engage  on  a  level  playing  field  while,  on  the  other,  Europe  has  some  unique 
capabilities and expertise in the area of low power microelectronics and processors, as well as 
in the area of advanced software tools. Thus, it is well positioned in this race. Another critical 
resource  is  human  expertise  in  using  HPC  systems  as  well  as  expertise  in  developing  and 
designing these systems and their underlying technologies.  

Europe has a number of globally successful scientific and engineering software firms, a larger 
number  of  nationally  and  regionally  successful  software  firms,  and  is  strong  in  many 
important areas of parallel software development8. The majority (64%) of the most important 
parallel  software  applications  in  use  at  European  HPC  sites  surveyed  by  IDC  have  been 
created and are further developed in Europe. 

The software of the next decade will require a root and branch rethink more even fundamental 
than  for  hardware;  in  fact,  the  growing  gap  between  the  state  of  the  art  in  hardware  and  in 
software  is  already  so  large  that  it  may  even  become  a  block  to  further  progress.    New 
approaches  and  new  tools  will  be  required,  perhaps  even  a new  programming  paradigm.  At 
the very least, according to IDC, many HPC applications will need to be substantially adapted 
or wholly rewritten in order to exploit future HPC systems — a major undertaking when half 
of the top codes of the sites surveyed are more than ten years old 

The underlying problem is that modern HPC hardware with large numbers of CPU cores, each 
with  decreasing  levels  of  memory  and  memory  bandwidth,  is  causing  a  mismatch  with 
existing  application  software,  driving  a  need  to  fundamentally  redesign  and  rewrite  HPC 
application  software  for  greater  parallelism.  Only  about  1%  of  HPC  applications  today  can 
exploit  10000  or  more  processor  cores;  in  a  recent  survey  around  52%  were  reported  to  be 
running  on  only  one  node  (with  an  average  of  3-4  cores).    By  contrast,  the  largest  HPC 
hardware systems already contain more than 200000 cores, and million-core supercomputers 
will begin to arrive before the end of this decade. 

Europe  is  already  strong  in  important  areas  of  parallel  software  development,  and  a  global 
leader in this area of the supporting Computer Science; some of Europe's best firms are ahead 
of their international competitors in exploiting HPC for innovation9.  Thus Europe is also in 
an  excellent  position  to  embrace  the  software  challenge  as  an  opportunity  to  seize  global 
leadership,  the  more  so  as  no  other  nation  or  region  has  committed  itself  to  a  strategic 
programme in this area. 

Currently, however, it is often difficult for software creators and vendors to make a business 
case  for  the  major  parallelisation  initiatives  required,  in  the  face  of  multiple  technical  and 
economic uncertainties, and of the cost when improved codes must be proved and re-certified 
at each update. 

At a macroeconomic level, although the HPC market is relatively small (see next section), it 
has  been  noted10,11  that  return  on  investment  is  high  and  that  companies  and  countries  that 

7  IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Interim Report: 

Executive Summary 

8  IDC Study "Financing a Software Infrastructure for Highly Parallelised Codes", page 1 
9  http://www.compete.org/publications/detail/486/advance/ 
10  A  coordinated  and  revitalising  European effort  in  the  area  of  HPC would  increase  industrial  growth  and  an 
increase  in  GDP  growth  for  all  Europe.  (IDC  Study  "A  Strategic  Agenda  for  European  Leadership  in 
Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Final Report: pages 19 and 59 onwards) 

6

 
 
                                                                                                                                                         
invest the most in HPC lead in science and economic success.  It can be argued that this is 
similar  to  space  industry,  where  the  business  of  manufacturing  rockets  and  launchers  is  a 
rather  limited  one,  but  the  overall  impact  on  our  economies  and  on  everyday  life  is 
substantial.  

The benefits of HPC arise not only from its use as a tool by science and by industry, but also 
from  the  know-how  generated  during  the  development  of  HPC  systems  and  software.  The 
development of next-generation HPC systems is motivated by very challenging specifications 
(e.g.  for  combinations  of  performance,  power  consumption  and  reliability),  which  serve  as 
drivers  for  the  development  of  novel  technology.  Thus  advances  made  in  the  area  of  HPC; 
such  as  new  computational  technologies,  software,  energy  efficiency,  storage  applications, 
etc.  frequently  feed  into  the  consumer  mass  market  and  become  available  in  households 
within about 5 years of their introduction in the HPC area (e.g. file systems and optimisations 
of  the  LINUX  operating  system).  Vice-versa,  computing  components  and  technologies 
developed for the mass market (e.g. energy efficient microprocessors) are widely used for the 
cost-efficient  design  of  HPC  systems  (e.g.  the  use  of  modified  PC  graphic  cards  as 
accelerators in HPC systems).  

In summary, HPC is important because it is a substantial multiplier of scientific and economic 
investments, and a major productivity tool, and a fertile field of research and development.  

Base-line data for HPC in Europe 

By  2009,  the  EU's  share  of  the  worldwide  HPC  market  (in  terms  of  systems  purchase  and 
HPC capacity available in Europe) slipped 10% from the pre-recession 2007 high of 34.4%. 
During  the  same  period  (2007-2009),  North  America's  market  share  grew  nearly  2%,  from 
47.8% to 49.5%. 

In  terms  of  market  size,  the  EU  market  for  high-end  computing  systems  is  relatively  small: 
some  €  630  million  in  2009.  It  covers  three  groups:  the  governmental  sector  addressing 
strategic  national  security  issues;  the  public  research  and  innovation  sector  consisting  of 
computing centres mainly associated with universities or as a single national entity; and the 
industry sector. A large part of this market depends on public funding. 

In  2009  European  spending  for  HPC  systems  was  distributed  over  the  following  main 
application sectors (according to the IDC split of sectors): 

1. University/academic: 23% 

2. Bio-sciences: 22%  

3. Computer Aided Engineering – CAE: 21% 

4. Government labs: 19% 

5. Defence: 13% 

11 The [US] High Performance Computing Initiative (HPC) is intended to stimulate and facilitate wider usage of 
HPC across the private sector to propel productivity, innovation and competitiveness; www.compete.org/hpc 

7

 
 
                                                                                                                                                         
Geographical distribution of HPC system purchases in 2009 (Source IDC) 

The broad HPC market is dominated (77%) by three US vendors, who are also the ones who 
supply the vast majority of systems for the large server farm/data centre/cloud market. Due to 
re-use of technologies, the two markets are to some extent coupled. In the "supercomputer" 
segment for HPC systems priced at €375,000 and  higher, IBM was most often the EU market 
share  leader  in  2005-2009,  with  HP  jumping  ahead  of  IBM  only  in  2008  and  otherwise 
remaining a close second. Together, IBM and HP captured 78% of the EU market in this price 
band in 2009. The third-place vendor, Bull, accounted for only about 5% of the market.  

Europe  lost  10%  of  its  high-end  computing  capacity  in  just  2  years,  whereas  other  nations 
increased their capacity in this area substantially during the same period, despite the economic 
crisis.  In  2011  China  had  more  computing  capacity  available  than  any  individual  European 
country (Top500 list12) and all European countries put together fell back from the 2nd to the 
3rd position after the US and Asia. Furthermore, China and Russia have massively increased 
their production efforts on HPC and have declared this as an area of strategic priority. 

12 www.top500.org/charts/list/37/countries 

8

 
 
 
 
                                                 
The HPC condition in the EU  

Europe has played an important role since HPC's beginnings and possesses a wealth of HPC-
related experience and talent13. In recent years however, Europe has been falling behind other 
regions of the world because it has under-invested in establishing a complete HPC ecosystem: 
to  acquire  leadership-class  computers,  secure  its  own  independent  HPC  supply,  and  deploy 
HPC services to industry and SMEs for simulation, visualisation and prototyping. This has a 
double negative effect in that there is not enough HPC capacity to cater for the demand of the 
science, innovation and industrial communities, and there is also not enough European supply 
industry  designing  and  building  these  systems.  Overall,  the  European  HPC  eco-system 
(including a Europe-based supply of HPC technologies and systems) is underdeveloped; as a 
consequence,  research  may  need  to  relocate  outside  Europe,  access  to  advanced  systems  is 
insufficient  and  software  and  tools  development,  especially  those  linked  to  hardware,  is 
disadvantaged. 

On the positive side Europe has world-leading capabilities in power-efficient microelectronics 
and processor designs, as well as unique software tools and applications. 

Key actors in leadership-class have changed many times in recent decades, moving from one 
country  and  region  to  another.  Not  only  the  European  HPC  stakeholders,  but  also  their 
counterparts  in  the  U.S.  and  Japan  believe  that  with  a  differentiated  strategy,  and  sufficient 
investment and collective political will, Europe can be a global player in HPC. 

The causes underlying the HPC decline in Europe 

Identified shortcomings and key challenges for HPC in Europe include: 

•  The  interaction  between  industry  and  academia  on  the  exploitation  of  high-end 
computing systems and services is rather limited, especially regarding the promotion of 
industrial and service innovation based on the use of HPC. Europe also lacks advanced 
experimental high-end computation facilities that would allow industry and academia to 
explore exa-scale technology options.  

•  In terms of exploitation of HPC research results and technology transfers (also to SMEs) 

there is still a big gap in Europe.  

•  There is only a small workforce available that is well trained in super computing. This is 
a great stumbling block for undertaking major R&D projects in HPC and the exploitation 

13 Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications – DEISA; www.deisa.eu 

Enabling Grids for E-sciencE – EGEE; www.eu-egee.org 
European Grid Infrastructure – EGI; www.egi.eu 
Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe – PRACE; www.prace-ri.eu 
Enabled by the world leading networking resources provided by GÉANT; www.geant.net 

9

 
 
 
                                                 
of HPC systems and services in research, industry and for society in general. So far HPC 
is  not  very  attractive  for  (post-graduate)  students  as  it  involves  a  rather  steep  learning 
curve to be able to apply HPC efficiently to a scientific problem.  

•  Europe lacks a completely autonomous supply of HPC systems. 95% of the HPC systems 
operated in Europe are from US vendors (Russia and possible China in the future). The 
main European suppliers active today are system integrators, i.e. they do not control the 
architecture and the design of HPC systems, but rely on foreign suppliers to give them 
sufficient information to assemble from components and subsystems. 

•  Europe  spends  substantially  less  than  other  nations  for  acquiring  high-end  computing 
systems (only half compared to the US, at a similar level of GDP14). Consequently, the 
amount and performance of computing systems available in Europe are simply too low 
compared  to  other  world  regions.  In  addition,  R&D  budgets  devoted  to  HPC  are  also 
low, in part due to the weakness of the European HPC supply industry.  

•  There is still a fragmentation of high-performance computing efforts across Europe and 
within  Member  States,  despite  progress  made  by  PRACE.  This  leads  to  the  inefficient 
use of resources and allows only for a limited exchange of expertise.  

•  Almost  none  of  the  public  procurement  budget  is  devoted  to  R&D  through  Pre-
Commercial  Procurement  (PCP)  -  contrary  to  the  US15.  This  could  be  due  to  the 
difficulties  of  pooling  national  resources  into  a  joint  international  procurement  for  a 
novel  leadership-class  system;  and  due  to  the  high  risks  that  European  enterprises, 
particularly  SMEs,  would  need  to  undertake  to  engage  in  a  PCP  exercise  where  the 
technical challenges might be too high in the end. Therefore, despite progress made (e.g. 
by  PRACE),  fragmentation  of  HPC  efforts  across  Europe  –  but  also  within  Member 
States - persists, in particular concerning public procurement. 

•  It is very difficult for European HPC vendors to sell their products to the public sector in 
countries that have national HPC vendors (e.g. in the US, national security issues and the 
Buy American Act16 are considered as the main obstacles for European vendors). At the 
same time, IPR developed in European research projects relevant to HPC often benefits 
mainly  the  non-EU  parents  of  participating  companies  as  the  Framework  Programme 
imposes few restrictions on the origin of participants or on the transfer of IPR to affiliates 
in third countries. 

Need for public intervention 
A large part of the European HPC market (50-65%) depends on public funding17. This is the 
money used to acquire computers and software to address the needs of national security, the 
public  sector,  and  publicly  funded  research  and  innovation.  In  addition,  the  development  of 
many HPC applications and associated software is also done through public funding because 
it is undertaken in academia or in public service organisations such as for weather forecasting 
or for health. 

14  IDC  Study  "A  Strategic  Agenda  for  European  Leadership  in  Supercomputing:  HPC  2020",  Final  Report: 

Table 2 on page 8 onwards 

15 Pre-commercial Procurement: Driving innovation to ensure sustainable high quality public services in Europe, 
COM(2007) 799, page 4 onwards: "The US public sector is spending $50Bn per year in procurement of R&D, 
an  amount  which  is  20  times  higher  than  in  Europe  and  represents  approximately  half  of  the  overall  R&D 
investment gap between the US and Europe." 

16 Sections 10 (a-d) of Title 41 of the United States Code 
17  IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Final Report: 

Table 3 on page 17  

10

 
 
                                                 
Public intervention is already taking  place: as  much  of the HPC  market  is  addressed  by  the 
public sector a stronger coordination in terms of procurement and development (e.g. through 
pre-commercial procurement) and use of HPC systems will make the overall HPC eco-system 
much  more  effective.  Consequently,  the  public  intervention  is  very  much  in  the  interest  of 
public authorities themselves! In increasing the effectiveness of public spending on HPC (and 
by also providing more of the currently so much lacking HPC resource) a positive momentum 
for industry at large will be generated: European-based HPC suppliers will be strengthened, a 
larger  trained  workforce  will  be  available,  and  software  up-scaling  activities  will  be  carried 
out widely, enabling the efficient use of large scale HPC systems.   

Why intervention at the EU level? 

The development of HPC has long been a national affair for the large Member States, often 
driven  by  military  and  nuclear  energy  applications.  In  recent  years,  however,  the  increasing 
importance  of  HPC  for  researchers  and  industry,  as  well  as  the  exponential  rise  in  the 
investments required to stay competitive at world level, have led to a common understanding 
that  "Europeanisation"  of  this  policy  domain  would  benefit  everyone  (both  small  and  large 
Member States).  

The Communication on ICT Infrastructures for e-Science COM(2009)108 asks for a "further 
development  of  the  European  High  Performance  Computing  Infrastructure".  The  Council 
conclusions (9451/10 RECH 173 COMPET 145 - conclusions of the 2982nd Competitiveness 
Council) ask for a "pooling of national investments in HPC in order to strengthen the position 
of European industry and academia in the use, development and manufacturing of advanced 
computing  products,  services  and  technologies".  The  Commission  reacts  to  this  request  by 
proposing the Communication at hand.  

The costs of a single leadership-class HPC system are at least € 75 million. To these one has 
to add the costs for operating and maintaining the system over its lifetime of some 5 years. 
These  costs  can  double  the  initial  investment  costs.  Technologies  are  also  rapidly  evolving 
and there exists various types of supercomputer architectures - one specific HPC system does 
not fit all the needs of the users. Consequently, a complete HPC eco-system has to be put in 
place that also includes software and services to really support the user community. For any 
single country to maintain a complete public HPC ecosystem an annual budget of at least € 
100 million is necessary. This does not include the R&D budget that would be necessary to 
also  lead  in  HPC  research  rather  than  just  making  the  HPC  resources  available.  This 
magnitude of investment is beyond the reach of most EU countries, even some of the bigger 
ones. 

Furthermore,  no  single  European  country  has  all  the  technological  know-how  and  suppliers 
that are needed to produce a complete state of the art HPC system (hardware and software). 
Cooperation  is  a  necessity;  in  particular  for  medium  and  small  Member  States,  which  find 
difficulties in creating self-sufficient national HPC infrastructures, but can valuably contribute 
to and benefit from an EU-level HPC eco-system. 

11

 
 
Section 2: Objectives 

General Policy Objective 
The Council conclusions of the 2982nd Competitiveness Council (December 2009) asked for a 
further  development  of  the  European  High  Performance  Computing  Infrastructure  and  a 
pooling  of  national  investments  in  HPC  in  order  to  strengthen  the  position  of  European 
industry  and  academia  in  the  use,  development  and  manufacturing  of  advanced  computing 
products,  services  and  technologies.  This  is  the  high-level  objective  driving  a  renewed 
European HPC strategy. 

Specific Objectives 

To realise the above general objective, the following specific objectives have been identified: 

•  Provide a world-class European HPC infrastructure, benefiting a broad range of academic 

and industry users, and especially SMEs, including a workforce well trained in HPC; 

•  Ensure independent access to HPC technologies, systems and services for Europe;  

•  Establish a pan-European HPC governance scheme to pool enlarged resources and increase 
efficiency including through the strategic use of joint and pre-commercial procurement; 

•  Ensure Europe's position as an actor on the global scene. 

These general objectives are presented in more detail below: 

Provision of a world-class European HPC infrastructure  

The  current  investment  level  of  some  €  630  million  per  year  for  acquiring  supercomputing 
resources  across  Europe  has  not  been  sufficient  to  sustain  computing  systems  and  services 
available across Europe at a globally competitive level. This investment would need to double 
to  some  €  1200  million  per  year  to  reach  a  sim ilar  level  (in  terms  of  GDP)  to  the  US  and 
revive Europe as an actor in the field of supercomputing. Supplementing the current ongoing 
efforts in HPC, an additional € 600 million will be needed annually. This amount should be 
shared  between  Member  States,  the  European  Commission,  and  industrial  users,  in  part  by 
applying innovative procurement mechanisms.  

In  addition,  a  mechanism  should  be  put  in  place  for  the  joint  procurement  of  systems  by 
several  Member  States  at  the  same  time  in  cases  where  it  makes  sense  to  pool  demand  in 
order to afford a machine with higher performance. Financial incentives should be provided to 
encourage  the  joint  procurement  of  HPC  systems  jointly  by  Member  States,  provided  that 
these satisfy EU needs and are open to use by everyone in Europe on the same terms. 

The deployment of HPC competence centres will facilitate access of industry and especially 
SMEs to HPC services (e.g. simulation, visualisation, prototyping) and application software. 
A  network  of  such  competence  centres  is  needed  to  promote  pan-European  services,  to 
disseminate best practice and for technology transfer. Such centres can also promote advanced 
experimentation with new HPC technologies.  

The  development  of  skills  and  an  educated  work  force  in  HPC  are  essential  for  Europe's 
competitiveness in science and industry. The broad inclusion of HPC skills into curricula is 
important to increase the number of trained personnel and to fully exploit Europe's innovation 
capabilities.  In  this  context  the  cooperation  with  the  European  Institute  of  Innovation  and 
Technology (EIT) is an important component. 

 
 
The provision and expansion of HPC empowered e-Infrastructures to further facilitate science 
cooperation addressing global challenges should be stepped up, making Europe the centre for 
global science cooperation. 

Following the setup of the PRACE legal entity in 2010 the research and education sector is 
pooling  its  leadership-class  computing  systems  as  a  single  infrastructure  and  makes  them 
available to all European researchers. In this way critical mass is achieved, training is more 
effective and access to these top-of-the-range computing systems is provided on the basis of 
scientific excellence rather than on the country where a researcher is located. PRACE is now 
extending its services to mid-range HPC systems with the objective to provide a distributed 
academic computing platform that serves best its users independent of their location and the 
availability of national resources. The model of PRACE of sharing and pooling systems and 
expertise  makes  best  use  of  the  limited  resources  available.  At  the  same  time,  PRACE  has 
become  a  platform  of  exchange  and  sharing  of  know-how  between  the  participating 
supercomputing  centres.  This  has  led  to  a  focusing  and  alignment  of  the  European 
supercomputing efforts in the academic field. 

Europe  today  has  world-class  capabilities  in  the  related  fields  of  automotive  and  aerospace 
design  engineering,  including  computational  fluid  dynamics  and  computational  structural 
analysis expertise and software creation. Europe also has world-class strengths in the bio-life 
sciences  sector.  European  best-in-class  automotive  and  aerospace  companies  typically  have 
pushed  HPC  usage  much  deeper  into  their  organizations  on  average  than  US  firms  -  more 
frequently  extending  its  use  from  traditional  upstream  applications  in  R&D  and  design 
engineering  into  high-value  downstream  uses,  such  as  manufacturing  and  production. 
European automotive, aerospace and bio-life sciences firms more often require their suppliers 
(often SMEs) to use HPC than occurs in North America. These European strengths  in  HPC 
software  are  currently  challenged  in  the  move  from  peta-  to  exa-scale  computing:  these 
software packages have been developed and refined over a long time (sometimes over the last 
30  years)  and  are  written  in  the  programming  languages  of  that  time;  this  software  is  often 
now  highly  inefficient  in  today's  highly  parallel  supercomputing  systems.  A  complete  re-
write, often even a complete new approach on how to model the actual physical problem in 
software has to be made. 

An independent access to HPC for Europe 

The objective is to ensure that Europe has access to the technical know how and the industrial 
base  it  needs  in  order  to  be  an  acknowledged  actor  in  HPC  hardware,  software  and  system 
supply by 2020, when the next generation of "exa-scale" supercomputers is supposed to come 
about. Many industrial areas fully depend on the availability of specific HPC resources (e.g. 
biotechnology, medical, automotive, aerospace, digital manufacturing). 

As  explained  in  section  1,  the  public  sector  (university/academic,  government  research 
centres, defence) is the major buyer of high-performance computers and software in Europe. 
Some  of  this  budget18  should  be  used  for  helping  the  development  of  a  native  European 
supply capability in leading edge technologies and systems. Industry should be encouraged to 
respond  to  pre-commercial  procurement  (PCP)  actions  for  the  development  of  advanced 
computing systems.  

Such  an  approach  that  links  supply,  demand  and  development  through  PCP  to  pursue  EU 
leadership in HPC supply has major advantages. First, it spearheads the development of the 
broader computing sector in Europe by offering a very challenging set of technical problems 

18 IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Final Report: 

Table 5 on page 59 

13

 
 
                                                 
on which researchers focus their efforts. Second, it allows co-development of next-generation 
hardware and software. Third, it stimulates the growth of HPC companies in Europe through 
coordinated public contracts. Fourth, it increases the leverage of Europe on a global level by 
making  it  a  powerhouse  of  HPC  developments.  Fifth,  it  increases  the  state-of-the-art 
computing capacity available in Europe for industry and research. Sixth, it is strategic in the 
context of national security. 

Europe  has  technical  and  human-skills  capabilities  and  strengths  (e.g.  in  applications, 
interconnects,  embedded/low-power  computing,  systems  and  integration)  that  are  highly 
relevant for the next generation of computing. There is now a window of opportunity created 
by the transition from peta- to exa-scale computing that cannot be missed. 

Governance for the efficient use of HPC resources 

A  strategy  aimed  at  a  European  HPC  renewal  requires  adequate  governance  for  setting 
concrete objectives, deciding policies, monitoring progress and efficiently pooling and using 
resources  available  across  the  Member  States. Governance  should  be  fair,  open,  simple  and 
efficient helping to balance and arbitrate on interests, capabilities and resources.  

The three main poles of governance should be 

(a)  an  EU-level  body  that  becomes  the  major  EU-level  provider  of  HPC  resources  for 

(mainly) academic use,  

(b) an industry-led technology platform for European HPC suppliers, and  

(c)  a  coordinated  network  of  competence  centres  providing  expertise  and  services  on  HPC 

software and applications. 

Pole  (a)  should  federate  national  HPC  infrastructures  into  a  unified  EU  infrastructure.  In 
particular, it should be able to:  

i) 

ii) 

Coordinate  national  and  regional  supercomputing  centres,  including  the  timing  and 
specifications of their procurement; 

Provide  computing  resources  to  users  in  academia  following  competition  at  EU  level 
and without national constraints; 

iii)  Establish  centres  of  excellence  addressing  key  societal  challenges  through  the 

application of HPC; 

iv)  Provide services to industry for applications requiring leadership-class computing;  

v) 

Pool national and European funds;  

vi)  Provide a platform for the exchange of expertise, resources and contributions necessary 

for the operation of high-performance computing systems; 

vii)  Set the specifications and carry out joint (eventually pre-commercial) procurements for 

the development of leadership-class systems;  

viii)  Support Member States in their preparation of procurement exercises. 

PRACE has made significant progress in the last few years and could be in good position to 
fulfil functions (i) to (viii). It would need to extend its service portfolio to also provide mid-
range supercomputing throughout Europe, so that the HPC infrastructure offers a wide range 
of services and a one-stop-shop for researchers and engineers. Alternatively to PRACE, some 
of the functions could be jointly executed by a number of other organisations in Europe. 

14

 
 
 
EU-level  measures  in  this  area  will  complement  or  reinforce  Member  States’  actions  (e.g. 
Germany and France creating the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing e.V. and GENCI - Grand 
Equipement National de Calcul Intensif – respectively).  

Pole  (b)  will  develop  a  common  industrial  vision  of  where  Europe  wants  to  be  as  a  HPC 
supplier  in  10  or  20  years,  and  produce  a  joint  roadmap  for  realising  this  vision.  It  is  the 
industry-led platform where companies (HPC suppliers and users) and academia discuss and 
agree the way forward. 

Pole (c) coordinates the carrying out of a number of services that are of particular importance 
to industry: providing expertise on the scaling of legacy codes and their use; offering services 
for  simulation  and  prototyping,  possibly  also  through  clouds;  ensuring  the  evolution  and 
availability of tools and of major application software in areas that are important for Europe, 
from  computational  fluid  dynamics  to  genomics;  and  executing  training,  outreach  and 
communication activities.  

Europe - a global actor 

Actions  with  global  scope  are  needed  to  match  the  global  challenges  ahead  of  us.  These 
challenges exist in the area of HPC itself — the move to exa-scale — but also in the science 
and  societal  domains  where  HPC  is  the  essential  tool  available  to  tackle  them  (e.g.  climate 
change, biomedical research). 

On an academic level Europe is fully engaged in the International Exa-scale Software Project 
(IESP) via the joint European Exa-scale Software Initiative (EESI)19. On the global scale, the 
emergence  of  Global  Virtual  Research  Communities  and  HPC-empowered  e-Infrastructures 
paved the way to efficiently pool resources (human, technological, computational). Concrete 
examples  are  in  radio-astronomy  where  telescopes  around  the  globe  are  linked  to  a  central 
computer in the Netherlands; or computational structural biology investigating the functioning 
of molecules and cells. The G8 countries have agreed to set aside funds for high-performance 
computing  software  development  projects.  These  efforts  support  the  joint  global  work 
towards exa-scale computing software and should continue.  

However,  a  strategy  towards  a  European  HPC  renewal  requires  keeping  in  mind  Europe's 
interests in terms of intellectual property in this strategic area. Intellectual property developed 
in  European  R&D  projects  often  benefits  mainly  the  participating  companies  from  3rd 
countries as the Framework Programme projects impose very few restrictions on the origin of 
participants  or  on  the  management  of  IPR.  A  more  balanced  arrangement  concerning  the 
technology transfer to third countries needs to be found. 

Overall, a level-playing field for the European HPC industry and expertise as suppliers has to 
be ensured. Results of European HPC research and development results should be exploited 
as much as reasonably possible in Europe. 

19 IESP: www.exascale.org and EESI: www.eesi-project.eu 

15

 
 
                                                 
Section 3: Envisaged Measures 

This  section  puts  forward  a  range  of  measures  addressing  the  objectives  highlighted 
previously.  To  make  HPC  a  strategic  priority  for  Europe,  coordinated  and  joint  efforts 
between  EU,  Member  States  and  industry  in  terms  of  industrial  policy,  innovative 
procurement  mechanisms,  and  substantial  financial  commitments  are  needed  to  ensure 
Europe's place in global HPC efforts. The section starts with a summary of the current state of 
affairs so that comparison with what is proposed next becomes easier. 

The current state of affairs 

Following  the  setup  of  PRACE  in  2008  and  the  commencement  of  services  in  2010,  the 
research sector is pooling its leadership-class computing systems into a single infrastructure 
and makes them available to all European researchers. In this way critical mass is achieved, 
training is more effective and access to these top-of-the-range computing systems is provided 
on the basis of scientific excellence and the needs of a given R&D effort rather than on the 
country  where  a  researcher  is  located.  PRACE  has  become  a  platform  for  the  provision  of 
pan-European  HPC  services,  the  coordination  of  national  HPC  system  acquisitions  and  for 
sharing  know-how  between  the  participating  supercomputing  centres.  This  has  led  to  a 
focusing and alignment of the European supercomputing efforts in the academic field.  

Despite these (recent) efforts of PRACE in the academic field, Europe's overall share in the 
globally available HPC capacity has gone down from more than 30% in 2008 to 20% in 2011; 
while Asia's share has gone up to 34%. Europe continues to be an appealing sales market for 
the US – and probably in the future for Chinese, Japanese and Russian - HPC system vendors. 
European HPC software and services are adapted and tuned to these HPC systems and this in 
turn further benefits their vendors from 3rd countries. 

Commission  investment  levels  are  around  €  50  million  annually  (some  10%  of  the  current 
total  European  HPC  public  expenditure)  in  support  of  the  PRACE  infrastructure,  a  small 
R&D  and  experimentation  effort  towards  next-generation  exa-scale  HPC,  and  limited 
coordination  in  the  acquisition  of  supercomputer  systems.  The  purchase  of  (mostly  small 
scale) HPC systems continues to be done at national level. The R&D work launched on exa-
scale  is  a  very  good  start  but  would  need  significant  ramping  up  to  bring  it  on  a  par  with 
anticipated investments by the US, Japan, Russia and China and to achieve a sustained impact 
on the European HPC supply industry.  

Act in a decisive way to ensure Europe's competitiveness in and through HPC 

To let European industry and academia benefit fully from HPC, more and better resources and 
services would need to be made available. Additional resources would be needed to acquire 
more  HPC  systems;  to  adapt  and  up-scale  software  packages  allowing  them  to  fully  exploit 
the  new  and  advanced  computing  architectures;  to  complete  the  European  HPC  ecosystem, 
providing a HPC service infrastructure including HPC consulting, modelling, simulation and 
computing  services,  also  for  industry  and  SMEs;  and  to  reinforce  training.  In  addition, 
decisive  actions  are  needed  to  ensure  Europe's  independent  access  to  HPC  as  a  strategic 
matter  for  competitiveness.  A  Europe-based  supply  of  HPC  systems  and  services  should  be 
reached by 2020. 

 
 
 
Europe  strategically  needs  to  ensure  native  HPC  capabilities  to  remain  competitive  and 
position  itself  as  a  centre  of  innovation,  a  hub  of  scientific  excellence  and  a  global  partner. 
Gaining  independent  access  to  HPC  systems  and  services  would  support  growth  and 
competitiveness also in ICT industry and the economy in general.  Most importantly, Europe 
would be able to address societal challenges more efficiently, ranging from climate change, to 
the working of the human brain, or to the treatment of diseases with a large impact on citizens 
like Alzheimer's. Europe will be able to invest in HPC centres of excellence that design and 
build dedicated HPC systems with specific features optimised for addressing a given societal 
challenge  (e.g.  simulating  the  human  brain  needs  a  different  computing  architecture  then 
designing and simulating a more efficient battery for electric cars). If Europe does not feature 
centres of excellence with dedicated and top-of-the-range HPC systems, leading research and 
innovation would be carried out at locations where such resources are made available (outside 
Europe).  Thus,  native  HPC  capabilities  would  be  needed  to  provide  a  flexible  HPC  eco-
system tuned to the needs of the European user community.  
The  additional  financial  resources  needed  are  estimated  at  around  €  600  million  per  year 20. 
They would be provided by the Commission (e.g. Horizon 2020 – e-Infrastructures, cohesion 
policy  instruments),  Member  States  (individually  and  through  Joint  Programming),  and 
industry (suppliers and users). This amount is well reachable if one considers that PRACE has 
already  20+  partner  countries  participating.  Overall,  this  would  double  the  European  HPC 
market to some € 1200 million per year.  

These  resources  would  stimulate  the  entire  sector  and  would  increase  demand  for  a  HPC 
trained workforce. Sufficient resources would be available to provide the required training in 
many  HPC  areas.  HPC  competence  centres  would  be  launched  as  clusters  of  expertise  that 
bridge between academia and industry in terms of HPC development and use for simulation, 
visualisation, product prototyping and modelling. The setup of HPC experimentation centres 
(e.g. on exa-scale technologies) would allow industry to exploit much better the opportunities 
offered by novel HPC. 

Joint and coordinated procurement of HPC systems and provision of HPC services would free 
– to some extent - HPC system acquisition from national budget limitations. This should be 
supported by a strengthened pan-European HPC governance scheme. Stimulus funding from 
the  EU  is  necessary  to  encourage  the  pooling  of  resources  between  Member  States.  In 
addition, a strong support of Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) will foster the development 
of  advanced  and  leadership-class  HPC  systems.  PCP  is  seen  as  a  strategic  tool  to  stimulate 
research and innovation in HPC and strengthen the HPC industry in Europe. Pre-commercial 
procurement  undertaken  on  an  annual  or  biannual  basis  with  some  €  100  million  per  PCP 
activity would amount to about 4-8% of the overall annual HPC expenditure, or 6-12% of the 
public  annual  expenditure.  Such  an  amount  is  modest  in  the  sense  that  it  would  not  disrupt 
normal  public  procurement  of  HPC  systems,  yet  sufficient  for  stimulating  a  native  EU 
technology development and supply. PRACE is in a good position to facilitate the pooling of 
resources between Member States and matching funding from the European side, in order to 
support  the  (pre-commercial)  procurement  of  HPC  systems  and  R&D&I  efforts  with  a 
European dimension.  

At  the  same  time,  the  pooling  of  national  funds  for  PCP  is  expected  to  be  politically  and 
organisationally  challenging  because  of  the  partial  loss  of  control  over  the  procurement 
process  by  individual  countries  and  their  supercomputing  centres,  but  also  because  some  of 
the  countries  may  perceive  that  they  have  no  national  interest  in  funding  an  R&D&I 

20 IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Final Report: 

Table 4 on page 58 

17

 
 
                                                 
programme in advanced HPC through their procurement budgets. It is therefore important that 
PRACE defines a governance scheme for PCP investments which is variable in geometry, is 
perceived by all as fair, and motivates investments both by countries that aspire to be major 
HPC market players as well as by those that limit themselves to a lesser role. 

in  embedded  and  mobile  computing, 

Europe's  strengths 
in 
microelectronics  and  software  will  be  the  basis  for  innovative  and  efficient  European 
designed and developed HPC systems. Together with Europe's strength in HPC applications, 
EU industry possesses all necessary know-how and skills across the full technology spectrum 
to  be  able  to  develop  leadership  class  HPC  systems.  Industrial  efforts  in  HPC  can  be 
coordinated by a European Technology Platform in this area. 

in  energy  efficiency, 

With  such  efforts  in  place,  Europe  can  play  a  strong  role  in  the  global  race  for  the  next 
generation of HPC systems – the exa-scale computing challenge. The extra effort required to 
move to exa-scale computing could have enormous returns: mastering  extreme-performance 
technologies (use and supply) would not just put European technologies back at the forefront 
of  supercomputing,  but  it  would  also  be  crucial  for  maintaining  and  improving  the 
competitiveness of European industries in many areas, for key advances in fundamental and 
applied research and for tackling global challenges such as energy, climate change, etc. 

18

 
 
Section 4: Analysis of Proposed Measures 

This  analysis  is  based  on  the  scenarios  developed  in  the  Final  Report  of  the  IDC  Study  "A 
Strategic  Agenda  for  European  Leadership  in  Supercomputing:  HPC  2020"  and  on  the 
consultations with HPC stakeholders (industry, academia and Member States, see Annex).  

Investments in R&D and HPC are critical for economic growth in many sectors, but growth 
will  normally  lag  these  investments  by  five  years  or  more.  The  GDP  impacts  are  in  2020 
values based on today's investments. This impact is based on increased expenditures on HPC, 
which triggers more expenditure in R&D, generating more innovative products and services 
in  the  longer  term.  Innovative  products  and  services  are  generating  healthy  businesses  with 
growing revenues. Finally these revenues generate overall economic growth and contribute to 
the  GDP.  Thus,  investments  in  HPC  contribute  to  economic  growth  in  the  long  run.  The 
relationships  between  the  various  steps  have  been  modelled  by  IDC  and  integrated  in  an 
overall model linking investment in HPC and economic growth. IDC  is  using this model in 
their  studies  and  in  providing  advice  to  governments  around  the  globe.  Evidence  in  Europe 
(e.g. automotive, pharmaceutical and aerospace industry) indeed supports such a relationship 
between HPC investment and global competitiveness.  

According  to  one  IDC  study  carried  out  in  this  context,  an  investment  into  HPC  today  can 
contribute as much as 3 % to GDP growth in 2020. The widespread use of HPC will improve 
the  business  environment,  especially  for  SMEs,  and  will  foster  the  development  of  a  strong 
and sustainable industrial base able to compete globally.  

European GDP improvements will come from a number of different areas: 

•  Directly from industries that use the improved HPC infrastructure and tools to make better 

and more competitive products and services 

•  Directly  from  European  HPC  suppliers  of  the  targeted  new  technology  areas  (and  for 

related HPC suppliers) 

•  Indirectly  from  scientific  advances,  although  these  take  longer  to  show  up  in  economic 

terms (and are not included in this evaluation) 

Is continuing the Status Quo an option? 

Despite the gains achieved by PRACE in recent years, maintaining the status quo would lead 
to  additional  scientific  and  economic  ground  lost  to  foreign  competitors  by  2020.  Minimal 
investment  increases  in  HPC  could  even  cause  a  negative  effect  on  GDP  by  2020.  Other 
countries  (in  addition  to  the  US  and  to  some  extent  Japan,  especially  China  and  Russia, 
potentially India and Brazil) are increasing their efforts and investments in HPC and by 2020 
Europe would clearly be seen as a follower. 

In  the  field  research  IDC  conducted  for  the  Study  "A  Strategic  Agenda  for  European 
Leadership  in  Supercomputing:  HPC  2020",  survey  respondents  from  national  funding 
agencies,  HPC  centres  and  research  programs,  and  vendor  companies  in  Europe  clearly 
articulated the consequences if Europe does not take steps to develop native HPC capabilities. 
The respondents almost universally portrayed the consequences as dire for both Europe as a 
region and the EU Member States, especially the smaller ones.  

 
 
 
The main foreseeable consequences were as follows: 

•  Europe  would  lose  ground  as  a  scientific  and  research  powerhouse.  The  HPC  capacity 
available through PRACE in 2011 is oversubscribed by a factor of 6 in terms of CPU hours 
requested for R&D. At the same time Asia has increased installed HPC capacities further. 
According to the Top500 list Europe had at the end of 2011 only 19% of the world's HPC 
capacities  (in  terms  of  aggregated  performance)  while  the  Americas  had  45%  and  Asia 
36%. Europe would become inferior to the USA and Asia in scientific capability. Smaller 
EU Member States would likely suffer most. 

•  Europe  and  the  EU  Member  States  could  lose  industrial  competitiveness  and  jobs.  The 
existing EU HPC strategy already lags the US and Japan in providing industry with access 
to world-class HPC resources. If nothing is done to remedy this situation, Europe and the 
Member States could fall seriously behind these and other nations in industrial innovation 
and economic competitiveness.  

•  The  European  ICT  industry  has  some  unique  strength  in  the  areas  of  low-power 
electronics,  system  integration,  energy  efficiency  and  innovative  cooling,  HPC  system 
components,  HPC  system  operational  tools  and  software  analysis  techniques.  Not 
exploiting  the  synergies  between  these  within  a  European  initiative  will  make  some  of 
these  suppliers  valuable  targets  for  foreign  takeovers  and  an  opportunity  will  be  lost  in 
combining these efforts to stimulate the European HPC supply industry.  

•  Exa-scale  HPC  computing  systems  require  a  complete  new  approach  to  software 
programming. Without direct access and interaction during the development of these new 
computers it would be impossible to have scientific and industrial software packages ready 
in time so that they are able to fully exploit these new systems. A decoupling of these co-
design and development processes would either lead to an inefficient utilisation of the HPC 
systems in Europe or provide other nations with a window of opportunity to come up with 
alternative software packages replacing the European ones.  

•  Europe  and  the  EU  Member  States  could  experience  an  escalating  brain  drain  to  the  US 
and  Asia,  along  with  great  difficulty  in  attracting  talented  scientists  and  engineers.  The 
Europe-to-US  brain  drain  in  HPC  is  already  occurring,  including  scientists  relocating  to 
work at US national  laboratories  with  the best HPC resources available. This brain drain 
would likely escalate if Europe failed to keep its HPC resources on a par with those of the 
US and Asia.  

•  Europe and the Member States could become increasingly reliant on the US and Asia for 
scientific, industrial, and technological advances. If Europe fails to keep pace in HPC with 
the  US,  Japan,  and  others,  Europe  might  be  forced  to  import  scientific,  industrial,  and 
technological advances from other areas of the world — without having much to offer in 
exchange. 

•  National security concerns may not be able to be addressed in an independent way. 

•  The smaller and less affluent EU Member States could lose the ability to access and benefit 
from large HPC systems. This would widen the digital divide in Europe, to the detriment 
of  the  smaller  countries.  Unlike  Europe's  wealthier  Member  States,  the  smaller  Member 
States typically cannot afford to fund world-class HPC systems on their own and rely to a 
greater extent on access to HPC systems in other countries.  

•  The lack of HPC competence centres severely hampers the access of SMEs to this key tool 

as an efficient means for simulation, visualisation, modelling and prototyping.  

20

 
 
•  Europe's existing world-class skills in HPC related technologies would also erode without 

continuing access to world-class HPC systems. 

Expected impact of proposed measures 

A  comprehensive  HPC  strategy  such  as  the  one  proposed  has  the  potential  to  substantially 
impact in many economy sectors and increase GDP in many EU countries. Many companies 
in  Europe  would  see  direct  benefits  from  the  better  use  of  HPC,  including  automotive, 
aerospace, energy, bio-life sciences, climate, finance, movie design, pharmaceuticals, IT, and 
chemicals. In addition, a critical mass of PCP for leadership-class computers would directly 
grow the broader HPC supply sector (systems and services) across Europe. 

Approximately  27%  of  overall  EU  GDP  is  currently  in  industry  (if  services  and  agriculture 
are  considered  the  other  sectors).  A  strong  European  HPC  strategy  could  increase  industry 
growth by 6%–8% in 2020 and potentially as much as 10% in 2025. This would result in an 
increase  in  GDP  growth  for  all  Europe  by  2%  in  2020  and  3%  in  2025  as  the  strategy  and 
investment impacts materialize.21  

The additional investment of € 600 million in co mbination with the use of PCP would provide 
the  best  chance  of  reaching  all  or  at  least  most  of  the  strategic  leadership  goals  by  2020.  It 
would  also  provide  sufficient  HPC  resources  and  tools  to  increase  the  rate  of  scientific 
advancement across Europe.  It would ensure the establishment of a dynamic HPC ecosystem 
where the encouraging environment and the large and well trained workforce in HPC would 
attract (including foreign) HPC actors to carry out their work in Europe. 
On an international level, US22,23, Japan24, Russia25, China and Korea26 all are increasing their 
investments in HPC and are ready to invest heavily for their independent access to this key 
technology  recognising  its  strategic  nature  and  the  prestige  it  carries;  they  are  also  ready  to 
cooperate  with  Europe  in  addressing  some  of  the  major  challenges  in  software  and 
applications. Europe simply cannot afford to stay out of this race. 

Other benefits would include: 

•  Europe would gain an independent and native access to HPC technology from a European 

supplier base.  

•  A  pan-European  HPC  governance  scheme  would  ensure  the  efficient  utilisation  of 
resources available for the acquisition and the provision of HPC systems and services. 

21 IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Final Report: pages 
59  and  60.  The  underlying  model  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  today's  investments  in  HPC  trigger  more 
research, which causes more revenues, which result in higher GDP in 2020 and beyond. 

22 In his 2011 State of the Union address, US President Obama noted China’s HPC achievements and countered 
that the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is “using supercomputers to get a lot more 
power out of our nuclear facilities.”  

23 The US has put aside $126 million alone for exa-scale computing in 2012, to overtake China's Tianhe-1A 

supercomputer as the fastest computing platform 

24 From 2002 to 2004, Japan’s “Earth Simulator” supercomputer topped the Top 500 list, sparking concern that 
motivated the US Government to substantially bump up funding for high performance computing in order to 
recapture the lead. In 2011 Japan's K computer took the lead again. 

25 In 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that, without more investment in supercomputer 

technology, Russian products “will not be competitive or of interest to potential buyers.” 

26 In June 2010, Rep. Chung Doo-un of South Korea’s Grand National Party raised that topic: “If Korea is to 

survive in this increasingly competitive world, it must not neglect nurturing the supercomputer industry, which 
has emerged as a new growth driver in advanced countries.” 

21

 
 
                                                 
•  Pre-Commercial  Procurement  activities  would  pool  national  funding  resources  in  an 
efficient way for the development of leadership-class innovative HPC systems. This would 
give Europe a boost in the race towards exa-scale systems. 

•  Europe would be recognized as a hotbed for new science and engineering research. 

•  Europe's  leadership  in  specific  areas  of  HPC  (e.g.  application  software,  tools,  energy 
efficiency, system design) would create many new jobs in science and industry, and could 
result in faster growth in the national economies. 

•  HPC  Intellectual  Property  (IPR)  generated  in  Europe  with  public  funds  would  benefit 

Europe and its economy. 

•  National security aspects of HPC could be well catered for. 

The successful implementation of this strategy requires establishing a level-playing field for 
the  European  HPC  industry  on  a  global  level,  ensuring  that  EU  companies  have  access  to 
foreign  markets  and  that  IPR  generated  from  European  HPC  investments  first  and  foremost 
benefit  Europe.  This  will  require  proper  use  of  the  rules  on  protection,  transfer  and 
exploitation  of  IPR  in  European  programmes  for  research  and  innovation  (Horizon2020)  as 
well as judicious selection of the selection and award criteria in pre-commercial procurements 
– by PRACE or other entities. Proper use of these instruments would also encourage (foreign) 
HPC actors to locate more of their R&D in Europe. Overall, this will allow the achievement 
of the set objectives from a position of strength and increased international influence. 

Additional observations 

The  administrative  impact  of  the  proposed  measures  has  been  assessed  and  found  to  be 
negligible: PRACE and its governance structures have been setup; the e-Infrastructures Policy 
Forum with the Member States exists already too; a European Technology Platform on HPC 
has  been  announced  and  is  in  the  process  of  being  setup.  No  new  structures  need  to  be 
created.  Eventually  existing  structures  might  need  more  staff  in  the  longer  run.  Again,  this 
will not create significant extra burdens to any of the actors. 

Energy  consumption  is  a  clear  barrier  that  has  to  be  overcome.  The  recent  advances  in 
leadership-class computing have shown a halving of power consumption over the last 6 years 
while  the  performance  increased  by  a  factor  of  250  in  the  same  timeframe.  Overall  the 
electricity  bill  in  HPC  is  a  significant  factor  (some  €  2-3  million  per  centre  per  year  for 
electricity is quite common). HPC vendors and users are very much aware of this factor and 
already  now  there  are  many  very  promising  activities  ongoing  to  reduce  the  energy 
consumption (and the associated electricity bill). This is in the very (economic) interest of all 
of the stakeholders and no particular additional requirements need to be assessed. 

IDC  has  carried  out  a  survey  with  European  HPC  stakeholders  gathering  their  input  on  the 
options listed above. Their main comments and suggestions are provided in the Annex. 

22

 
 
Section 5: Monitoring and Evaluation 

A full review of the progress achieved should be carried out by 2015. This assumes that the 
proposed strategy will be implemented from 2013 onwards. Thus, after some 3 years concrete 
effects should be visible. In 2015 one should also have already a good idea on the progress 
towards exa-scale and the overall impact of HPC on Europe's innovation and competitiveness.  

In  the  meantime  various  indicators  are  available  measuring  the  progress  towards  the 
objectives.  For  each  of  the  specific  objectives  a  set  of  indicators  is  provided  (the  progress 
towards  the  general  policy  objective  is  measured  via  the  entire  range  of  indicators  given 
below):  

Specific Objectives 

•  Encourage the industrial and academic use of HPC through the provision of a world-class 

European HPC infrastructure  

The growth of a functioning European HPC eco-system can be monitored via PRACE: the 
number  of  user  communities  it  is  serving,  the  amount  of  computing  cycles  available  and 
the services provided to users (e.g. number of up-scaled software packages).  

The  number  of  centres  of  excellence,  the  number  and  profile  of  their  users  are  good 
indicators  on  how  well  SMEs  and  industry  in  general  can  access  HPC  resources  and 
services. 

The  investment  level  of  HPC  resources  can  be  measured  by  the  total  volumes  of  annual 
HPC system sales in Europe.  IDC is one of the organisations monitoring such sales on a 
global basis. In this way the amount of HPC resources available to academia and industry 
can  be  measured  effectively.  The  actual  use  of  such  systems  is  difficult  to  measure, 
especially when it comes to industrial use. 

The level of joint pre-commercial procurement activities in HPC can be measured via the 
annual reporting provided by PRACE and its partners on their activities carried out in this 
context. The financial incentives fostering the joint-procurement can be measured via the 
same mechanism.  

The  amount  of  training  provided  and  the  number  of  people  trained  can  be  readily 
measured.  However,  the  overall  impact  of  having  a  sufficiently  large  HPC  trained 
workforce has to be measured via stakeholder consultations and surveys. 

•  The  level  of  independent  access  to  HPC  technologies,  systems,  services  and  tools  for 
Europe can be monitored through the number of patents registered in Europe in HPC and 
the number of people employed by European HPC suppliers. 

•  The  effectiveness  of  a  pan-European  HPC  governance  scheme  can  be  measured  by  the 
number  of  joint  and/or  pre-commercial  procurement  actions  carried  out  through  PRACE 
versus the number of such activities done outside PRACE. The amount of money pooled is 
a further indicator of the preparedness of Member States to join resources in this field. The 
establishment  and  functioning  of  an  ETP  on  HPC  can  be  measured  via  the  number  of 
participants in it and its annual reporting. The network of competence centres and centres 
of  excellence  can  be  measured  by  the  number  of  centres  established  and  the  number  of 
users served. 

 
 
 
•  Europe's share of the world's total available HPC capacity can be measured to some extent 
via  the  6-monthly  published  Top500  ranking.  However,  most  industrial  and  national 
security-related systems are absent from that list. Nevertheless, it still gives a good relative 
picture on how Europe is performing vis-à-vis other nations and regions.  

Surveys  and  studies  will  be  also  carried  out  for  specific  topics  (e.g.  the  needs  for  HPC 
software up-scaling and applications, etc.) and this will feed into the overall assessment of the 
state of HPC in Europe. The gathered information will be shared with all actors (as far as this 
does not concern any national security-related issues or commercially sensitive topics). 

Many  of  these  monitoring  and  consultation  activities  are  already  ongoing  and  they  will  be 
continued.  Thus,  no  significant  extra  efforts  will  be  needed  to  maintain  the  current  level  of 
monitoring.  The  launching  of  special  studies  will  be  done  on  a  case  by  case  basis  and 
following a clear assessment of the needs and their cost effectiveness. 

24

 
 
Section 6: Stakeholder Consultations 

Key public consultation documents and summaries of replies 

HPC in Europe Taskforce (HET) white paper: “Scientific Case for Advanced Computing in 
Europe” 
www.hpcineuropetaskforce.eu/files/Scientific case for European HPC infrastructure HET.pdf 

Online Consultation (until 20 May 2011): Green Paper on a Common Strategic Framework 
for future EU Research and Innovation Funding – Question 25: How should research 
infrastructures (including EU-wide e-infrastructures) be supported at EU level?  
ec.europa.eu/research/csfri/index_en.cfm 

81.4 % of the 719 respondents considered Research Infrastructures (including EU-
wide e-infrastructures and HPC) important or of high importance and that this should 
be further supported at EU level. 
One of the main messages of the respondents was: "Computational resources (HPC 
and PRACE in particular) have become necessary to tackle scientific challenges and 
the EU should promote and facilitate computing infrastructures". 

Key studies and work carried out by external consultants 

International Data Corporation (IDC) Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in 
Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Interim Report 
http://www.hpcuserforum.com/eu/downloads/IDCWP12S_12.10.2010v2_webInterim.pdf 

IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", 
Final Report 
http://www.hpcuserforum.com/eu/downloads/SR03S10.15.2010.pdf 

IDC Study "Financing a Software Infrastructure for Highly Parallelised Codes", Final Report 
http://www.hpcuserforum.com/EU/downloads/IDCEUsoftwaresurveyguide.zip 

US High Performance Computing Initiative (HPC)  
www.compete.org/hpc 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Conclusions from HPC expert consultation meetings  

2 September 2010 

The  main  and  unanimous  conclusion  of  the  meeting  is  that  there  is  no  choice:  a  European-
wide  effort  should  and  must  be  engaged  to  develop  autonomous  technology  (covering  the 
whole  spectrum  from  processor  architectures  to  applications)  to  build  exa-scale  systems  in 
~10 years. Europe has the technical and human-skills capabilities to tackle this big challenge. 
Even if currently Europe is very weak compared to other regions in terms of supplying High 
Performance  Computing  systems,  there  are  strengths  (e.g.  in  applications,  embedded/low-
power  computing)  that  are  highly  relevant  for  the  next  generation  of  computing.  These 
strengths can and must be exploited in order to get European industry back in the computing 
scene  as  technology  leading-edge  supplier.  There  are  new  opportunities  created  from  the 
transition  from  peta  to  exa-scale  computing  as  this  will  not  be  achieved  by  an  evolution  or 
extrapolation  but  by  a  revolution  in  computing  technologies  (all  the  way  from  hardware, 
programming, algorithms etc. to applications). There is a window of opportunity that cannot 
be  missed,  as  the  social,  economic  and  scientific  impacts  are  enormous  compared  to  the 
investment for this effort. 

30 March 2011 

Now it's the time to act. 2011 is a critical year in which important decisions will be taken for 
the future of the development of supercomputing capabilities in Europe including the efforts 
towards  producing  exa-scale  systems.  The  three  main  areas  where  timely  action  should  be 
taken are:  

(a) 

(b) 

(c) 

Structuring  the  European  stakeholders:  a  European  Technology  Platform  (ETP) 
was receiving strong support 

Applications  supporting  science,  supporting  industrial  co-design  processes,  but 
also  supporting  socio-economic  analysis  in  political  and  economic  decision 
making processes  

Sustainability  in  terms  of  supporting  the  necessary  R&D,  engineering  and 
application  (re-)coding  effort  for  exa-scale  systems,  and  of  market  and  industrial 
strategy considerations.  

Europe  has  the  required  technical  and  human-skills  capabilities  to  tackle  the  exa-scale 
challenge,  but  in  addition  to  the  current  weaker  position  of  the  technology  supply  in 
supercomputers  the  European  R&D,  organisational  and  political  landscape  is  much  more 
complex  than  in  US,  China  or  Japan.  However,  the  extra  effort  required  to  coordinate  the 
European  efforts  can  have  enormous  returns:  mastering  extreme-performance  technologies 
(use  and  supply)  is  not  just  to  put  European  technologies  back  at  the  forefront  of 
supercomputing,  but  is  also  crucial  for  maintaining  and  improving  the  competitiveness  of 
European  industries  in  many  areas,  for  key  advances  in  fundamental  sciences,  engineering 
and technology, and for tackling global challenges such as energy, climate change etc. Solid 
and quantified arguments integrated in a convincing story and a comprehensive plan on how 
to  carry  out  the  efforts  must  be  developed  in  order  to  get  the  necessary  support  of  EU  and 
national decision-makers. 

 
 
 
Stakeholder Survey Results 
IDC carried out a survey27 with European HPC stakeholders where the most popular choice 
for the EU's HPC strategy to focus on was HPC software applications and application scaling 
(mentioned  by  71%  of  the  respondents).  Becoming  stronger  in  "the  use  of  HPC  to  solve 
important scientific problems" (62%) was the second most popular choice, followed by "the 
use  of  HPC  to  solve  important  engineering  problems"  (46%).  Furthermore,  the  issue  of 
staffing/training was raised as there is always a shortage of workforce in HPC.  

A sizeable majority of the respondents (72%) did not favour having the EU attempt to change 
the market structure or business models for HPC in Europe, such as for instance might happen 
if the EU were to adopt a protectionist policy in competitive procurements or provide direct 
funding  support  for  EU-based  vendors'  commercial  (as  opposed  to  pre-competitive) 
technology and product development. 

The survey respondents see the areas of expertise most needed from HPC user organizations 
as falling into these main categories28: 

•  Expertise in parallel programming for highly parallel HPC systems 
•  Expertise in creating advanced software algorithms 
•  Expertise in writing highly scalable application software 
•  The ability to port and optimize applications for new hardware architectures, including 

heterogeneous architectures that include newer processor types 
•  The ability to communicate and collaborate well with scientists 

The  main  recommendations  from  the  survey  respondents  on  what  the  EU  should  do  help 
develop and obtain critical HPC skills were the following29: 

•  Make HPC leadership a higher priority in the EU 

27 IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Interim Report: 

page 54 onwards and page 93 onwards 

28 IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Interim Report: 

page 111 onwards 

29 IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Interim Report: 

page 114 onwards 

27

 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
•  Ensure that HPC leadership becomes a long-term commitment with sustained funding 
•  Focus the EU HPC strategy on solving important problems  
•  Focus on algorithm and software development 
•  Strengthen HPC education and access in European colleges and universities 

The main recommendations from the survey respondents on what they would like to see the 
EU do to make Europe stronger in HPC were the following30: 

•  Make HPC a higher priority on the EU's research agenda 
•  Provide  substantial  EU  funding  and  not  just  coordination  and  direct  funding  more 

toward software development and skills training 

•  Ensure broad access to leadership-class HPC systems by users in all Member States 
•  Actively promote the benefits of HPC for science and industry 
•  Create  a  central  EU  HPC  organization,  possibly  by  expanding  the  mission  of  PRACE 

and also borrowing from the CERN model 

•  Drive toward EU leadership in peta-scale and exa-scale computing 
•  Include support for industrial initiatives and promote public-private partnerships 
•  Avoid  funding  a  large  number  of  small  projects  instead  of  a  limited  number  of  larger 

projects 

•  Avoid protectionism in procurements 

The  main  recommendations  from  the  survey  respondents  on  actions  that  are  needed  at  the 
national level to improve to improve the European position in HPC were the following31: 

•  Improve and unify HPC resources and access at the national level 
•  Increase national funding for HPC-enabled science and engineering 
•  Expand university programs in HPC at the national level 
•  Promote an understanding of the value and contributions of HPC 

30 IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Interim Report: 

page 117 onwards, page 125 onwards and page 136 onwards 

31 IDC Study "A Strategic Agenda for European Leadership in Supercomputing: HPC 2020", Interim Report: 

page 122 onwards 

28

 
 
 
 
                                                 
Annexes 

Technical background material: 

The Communication on ICT Infrastructures for e-Science - COM(2009)108 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0108:FIN:EN:PDF 

Council conclusions (9451/10 RECH 173 COMPET 145) 
Conclusions of the 2982nd Competitiveness Council 
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/10/st09/st09451.en10.pdf 

The most powerful supercomputing systems in the world 
www.top500.org 

Computing capacity available then any individual European country 
www.top500.org/overtime/list/36/countries 

Pre-commercial Procurement: Driving innovation to ensure sustainable high quality public 
services in Europe, COM(2007) 799 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0799:FIN:NL:PDF