National Competence Centres for High Performance Computing

Closed

Programme Category

EU Competitive Programmes

Programme Name

EuroHPC JOINT UNDERTAKING

Programme Description

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (hereinafter “EuroHPC JU”), will contribute to the ambition of value creation in the Union with the overall mission to develop, deploy, extend and maintain in the Union an integrated world class supercomputing and quantum computing infrastructure and to develop and support a highly competitive and innovative High Performance Computing (HPC) ecosystem, extreme scale, power-efficient and highly resilient HPC and data technologies.

Programme Details

Identifier Code

DIGITAL-EUROHPC-JU-2024-NCC-02-01

Call

National Competence Centres for High Performance Computing

Summary

The aim is to support existing or to create up to a new NCC in the EuroHPC JV.
Participating States not currently funded by the EuroHPC JV.
The NCCs will provide HPC services to industry (especially SMEs), academia and public administrations, providing customized/modular solutions for a wide variety of users, with the aim of facilitating and promoting the transition to wider HPC adoption in Europe.

SMEs will be at the heart of NCC activities.
Academic institutions and interested parties can only be addressed to a limited extent and most of the resources of an NCC will be dedicated to supporting local SMEs, industry and public services HPC recruitment.

Detailed Call Description

The NCC will represent the focal point of national competences in HPC and provide leading-edge knowledge to enable the development of innovative solutions in their constituency, taking into account national HPC needs and requirements emanating from different user communities (industry, academia, public administrations) and application domains. The NCC will establish and maintain a network of national HPC users, promote HPC use in the private and public sector, reach out to potential new users and develop the necessary expertise for HPC applications close to the relevant national and, in collaboration with other NCCs, European communities.

Each NCC will act as an access point to the European network of NCCs and other European HPC initiatives such as the Centres of Excellence for HPC applications to ensure that local stakeholders have access to the best available support in Europe if the required expertise can not be provided by the NCC or is out of scope of the NCC’s activities. In return, NCCs will support stakeholders from other regions and countries that need their expertise coordinated through the NCC network and the complementary Coordination and Support Action CASTIEL 2. NCCs will implement a flexible and modular approach in the services to be provided, taking into account the degree of maturity of the national HPC ecosystem and in close coordination and collaboration with the other NCCs to achieve the highest possible impact and the widest possible spread of knowledge, ensure the most efficient use of NCC resources and to avoid duplication of effort among the NCCs and with other initiatives.

HPC Competence Centres will, for example, engage in the following activities:

  • 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.
  • Contribute with the expertise to the development activities (TRL 4-6) of SMEs and the public services to enable their efficient use of HPC resources (e.g., software porting and customization, deployment of advanced simulation and modelling algorithms, methods, and tools etc.).
  • 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.
  • Implement technology transfer activities at local/national level and the Digital Single Market.

It is required that the NCC – hosted by either one or several national organisations – is formally designated and mandated by the national authorities of the EU Member State or the EuroHPC JU Participating State.
The NCC must be established as an organisation with appropriate visibility to the national communities and an independent organisational structure.

Individual NCCs will focus on activities where local support is most effective such as communication, consultation services, support specific to the relevant national and local communities and necessary co-development to fulfill the mission of NCC.

Co-development activities with SMEs should be limited to SMEs and a maximum of 5% of the personnel resources of an NCC may be used for all direct development activities by the NCC.

The JU considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the JU of up to €600.000 per national HPC Competence Centre matched by the Participating States with a similar amount, and a duration of up to 21 months would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately.

The resource distribution in the proposed work plan should reflect the main focus of the NCC network, i. e. local support services for SMEs and industry, and be generally aligned with the common work package and organisational structure of the NCCs in the EUROCC 2 network.

Call Total Budget

€5.000.000

Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan

Maximum grant amount: €5.000.000
The grant awarded may be lower than the amount requested.

Thematic Categories

  • Information Technology
  • Small-Medium Enterprises and Competitiveness

Eligibility for Participation

  • Central Government
  • Educational Institutions
  • Legal Entities
  • Private Bodies
  • Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
  • Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
  • State-owned Enterprises

Eligibility For Participation Notes

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

  • be legal entities (public or private bodies)
  • be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
    • non-EU countries:
      • listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries)

Consortium composition – Proposals must be submitted by:
a consortium of a minimum of 3 independent entities (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries

Call Opening Date

09/04/2024

Call Closing Date

14/05/2024

EU Contact Point

For help related to this call, please contact: info@eurohpc-ju.europa.eu