Our vision to promote and develop European HPC technologies and the Modular Supercomputing Architecture (MSA) as a truly European approach to heterogeneous exascale computing relies on the following observations and elements.
As engines for cross-sectoral digital transformations in many scientific, economic and social fields, Exascale and post Exascale supercomputers will be key to advancing automotive, aerospace, chemical and energy industries and to strengthening specific European competences in materials science, molecular biology, personalised medicine, neuroscience, AI as well as climate and earth system sciences, etc. Critical technological building blocks and integration paths are the critical ingredients to realize the objectives of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC-JU), i.e., the development of a hyper-connected set of Exascale and post Exascale supercomputers for high-end simulation and processing of big data, which can be spearheads and part of a wider vivid HPC ecosystem.
A high-level strategy — including concrete key elements and efforts – is needed to realize a vivid ecosystem of European supercomputers, the prospects for a lasting European HPC technology, and the role of pilot platforms in this context. Key assets are the successful BullSequana architecture and environment, co-developed by Atos and CEA, and deployed at large sites, different middleware and software stacks components including the proven modular middleware ParaStation Modulo, co-developed by PARTEC and FZJ. A third element is the hardware components like the EPI (European Processor Initiative) processors, a project which was initiated by Atos, BSC, CEA, FZJ and many partners, and like the BXI network initially co-designed by Atos and CEA and part of multiple EuroHPC Research & Innovation projects. The Modular Supercomputing Architecture (MSA), a truly European approach to heterogeneous computing, combines all these elements putting them at the service of a wide variety of application fields and satisfying their diverse requirements.