If EuroHPC is not a success, Europe is risking outsourcing its innovative capacity to third countries, says EC Commissioner Mariya Gabriel

Commissioner Mariya Gabriel at the EuroHPC press conference - Photo: EC.11 Jan 2018 Brussels - "The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking will allow us to build a pan-European infrastructure of High-Performance Computers. Through EuroHPC, we want to align national interest, industrial interests, scientific interests, all around one single project", said European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel at a EuroHPC press conference in Brussels. "First of all to finance competitive European HPC technology. Furthermore, we want to build jointly the pre-exascale infrastructure which will be amongst the most advanced in the world. The importance of this joint undertaking was recognized by 13 member states and associated countries."

"These countries, together with the European Commission committed to developing, acquiring and rolling out a pan-European infrastructure for supercomputers. All the other member states are invited to come on board. This would be possible for scientific communities and both public and private players."

"The stakes are quite high for Europe. HPC is a strategic technology for scientific research, for competitiveness and for the capacity of our industry to innovate."

"These supercomputers are vital tools to understand the complex challenges we face. These supercomputers open up the path to new scientific and industrial applications. For instance, the design of new medicines and the simulation of the effects of these medicines and the design of new aircraft. Or the modelling of the human brain, or to predict the effects of climate change."

"All of this can only be done with the next generation of HPC systems. Europe needs this infrastructure. Europe needs this technology in order to face the competition at world level."

"We cannot risk being dependent on third countries for these computers. This would mean outsourcing our innovative activities. I am certain that the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking will contribute significantly to our ambition of becoming one of the most dynamic digital economies in the world."

"We have a very ambitious agenda to set up EuroHPC as soon as possible. We are going to negotiate with the European Council for the creation of the Join Undertaking in 2018, and we do hope it will be up and running by 2019."