EUROPEAN PROJECTS / National Competence Centres in the framework of EuroHPC – Phase 2

National Competence Centres in the framework of EuroHPC – Phase 2

Project Coordinator: Dr. Carmen Elena CÎRNU – Scientific Researcher II

General objectives of the project

  • Facilitate access to the HPC ecosystem including testbeds, hands-on sessions on HPC, HPC application optimising and scaling by connecting national communities with other initiatives such as the European Centres of Excellence for HPC applications.
  • Facilitate uptake of HPC applications by different users, including SMEs (e.g. promoting locally, relevant success stories), academia and public administrations.
  • Provide scientific/technical expertise/consulting through application-oriented HPC knowledge/focus (e.g. HPC and High-Performance Data Analytics (HPDA)), as well as access to advanced simulation and modelling algorithms, software codes and tools.
  • Provide on-site evaluations of new technologies, experimenting, proofs of concept as well as enable validation and demonstration of HPC technologies, software codes, tools, and algorithms in relevant environments
  • Facilitate access to supercomputing and data management for exploring innovation solutions of interest to end users, including SME user industries.
  • Local and national training and skills development in the area of HPC and related subjects (e.g. HPDA, parallel programming, etc.), through face-to-face as well as online training (e.g. MOOC platforms).
  • Awareness raising and outreach on the benefits of HPC to potential user industries, including SMEs.
  • Raise awareness and support national and local communities in identifying and protecting intellectual property in an HPC context and provide advice on licensing policies in collaboration with the pan-European network of NCCs.

Project description

The main objective for NCC Romania (RoNCC) will be the agile continuous development of the national HPC ecosystem comprising organizations from industry, public administration and academia towards greater acceleration of HPC adoption at the national level. The goal is to consolidate the Roadmap and the catalogue of services from which the stakeholders can choose, guided by the NCC staff, in order to identify and facilitate the appropriate services and solutions for them. RoNCC will enhance the facilitation of access for stakeholders to national infrastructures, resources and competences and also act as an intermediary to access European infrastructure and opportunities, after a thorough analysis of the business cases, user needs and technical requirements. The RoNCC will operate as a standalone Competence Centre within the hosting entity and will continue to raise awareness for the benefits of HPC/HPDA/AI and the available services of RONCC and other services for user communities, IT hubs, SMEs, industry, public administration and academia. In parallel, the RoNCC will continue the education and skills development mission for any level of users through its courses and training services of universities and providers at the national level. The mechanism of interaction with users, created in the first EuroCC project, becomes more effective and oriented towards the creation of efficient results in the communities of users.

Estimated results

  • establish and maintain a network of national HPC users;
  • promote HPC use in the private and public sector;
  • reach out to potential new users;
  • develop the necessary expertise for HPC applications close to the relevant national and, in collaboration with other NCCs, European communities.
Short description

The mission of EuroCC 2 is to continue the establishment of a network of National Centres of Competence (NCC) in the most efficient way, while continuing to address the differences in the maturity of HPC deployment in Europe, for which improvement has already been noted. Therefore, in addition to high-level management to monitor progress in the NCCs’ development, the main task of the overall activity is to support national centres in setting up their individual operational frameworks, while accessing and making the most of the experience and expertise currently available at national and European level.

This time the project will also involve the Centres of Excellence. Our main goal is to drive collaboration, exchange of best practices and knowledge at the European level and to accelerate the improvement of national and thus European capabilities.