HPC CoE Council - HPC3

Applications in High-Performance Computing (HPC) help tackle some of the world’s biggest societal, scientific, and economic challenges and therefore take a pivotal place in the European HPC Ecosystem alongside the development of Exascale technologies and provision of access to extreme-scale infrastructure. Many important applications are being supported through the European Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in HPC.

In 2019, instigated by FocusCoE, the CoEs together with Focus CoE established the HPC CoE Council (HPC3), and elected the three HPC3 officers (see below). Currently, 14 HPC CoEs are members of HPC3.

HPC3 is a key vehicle to ensure that the European HPC CoEs have an appropriate presence in the European HPC Ecosystem and in the actions of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. The objectives of HPC3 are the following:

  • Identify European HPC CoEs common interests and represent the CoEs in the current European HPC landscape;
  • Develop a common point of view on an application-oriented research agenda for HPC in Europe, thus strengthening the role of application-oriented research;
  • Foster CoE collaboration and coordination of joint activities.

HPC3 provides a common forum for the CoEs to promote the development and usage of high-end HPC applications in all scientific fields. Regularly, inputs are given to the ETP4HPC Strategic Research Agenda.

An overview of the core scientific challenges tackled by the CoEs is shown in the general presentation. A more in-depth view into some of the most high-impact use cases of the CoEs is provided in the recently completed CoE brochure. A report on the CoE business activities and sustainability was created by the HPC3 Business Working Group.

With the strong impulse of EuroHPC JU and the upcoming arrival of (pre-)exascale machines, it is of primary importance to strengthen the development of key applications that will enable leading edge science making full use of these machines.

As one approach to interact with the European HPC ecosystem, HPC3 co-organised several workshops at the annual European HPC Summit Week conference:

Through FocusCoE and CASTIEL, HPC3 has established links to the National HPC Competence Centres, and a series of thematic meetings on technical topics was initiated in 2021.

The HPC3 working group on business and sustainability has summarized findings in a “Report on CoE business activities: opportunities, challenges and lessons learned”.

The HPC3 office consists of the 3 elected officers:

  • Chairperson – Edouard Audit (CEA – French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission),
  • Vice Chairperson – Elisa Molinari (CNR and Uni Modena),
  • General Secretary – Erwin Laure (Max-Planck-Institut)

The HPC3 office is the external contact to represent the whole set of European HPC Centres of Excellence. Should you have any questions or any points of interest for HPC3, please contact the HPC3 office members: