One of the most important conferences, the EuroHPC Summit, bringing together the HPC community, has been held annually since 2016. This year, for the first time, the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) was the main organizer. More than 500 experts attended the conference. Policymakers, representatives of supercomputing centres, and industrial enterprises took the stage. Colleagues from IT4Innovations also participated in the international HPC event.
Thomas Skordas, Deputy Director-General of DG CNECT, welcomed this year's participants. Skordas informed that Europe's first exascale supercomputer, Jupiter, will be installed at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany in 2024. He also mentioned the first six quantum computers that the EuroHPC JU will co-fund. One of these quantum computers will be installed in the Czech Republic at IT4Innovations.
Herbert Zeisel, Chair of EuroHPC JU, noted that this conference is intended to help the HPC community pave the way for an even more successful future of European supercomputing and collaboration. Zeisel reflected on the main principle of EuroHPC JU and the conference, “We all, the HPC community, have to stick together to achieve success”.
Anders Dam Jensen, Executive Director of the EuroHPC JU, spoke about the key achievements of EuroHPC JU and about 2022 as a milestone for European supercomputing: “To my knowledge, Europe has never before had two machines in the Top 5 of the TOP500. This is not only a strong testimony to the fact that EuroHPC JU is delivering on its objectives for Europe but also a historical shift.
Europe is now truly on the map and is recognized as such by its partners”. Jensen also spoke about the plans of the EuroHPC JU. In the coming months, a decision will also be made to support a second European exascale supercomputer.
(Two European supercomputers co-funded by EuroHPC JU were ranked in the November 2022 TOP500 list. The third place goes to the LUMI supercomputer installed in Kajaani, Finland, and the fourth to the Leonardo supercomputer at CINECA in Italy.)
Gustav Kalbe, Acting Director of CNECT.C, asked the Future of Exascale Supercomputing in Europe session participants whether they would try to justify Europe's investment in exascale, as the theme of this year's conference was “Excellence in European Supercomputing in the Exascale Era”. Thomas Lippert, Director of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, recalled the role of supercomputers, for example, in climate change research: “We owe a lot to supercomputers. To be more concrete and be safer in our predictions, we need to make a new step”.
IT4Innovations also participated in the conference. Our colleagues presented the latest achievements and projects in which IT4Innovations is involved. They spoke in panel discussions, presented in the poster session, debated challenges in the field of HPC, and presented the activities of the National Competence Centre for HPC.
Within the EuroHPC Demo Lab, a brand new space dedicated exclusively to European supercomputers, visitors were introduced to the Karolina supercomputer. The presentation with live showcases, especially the demonstration of the LEXIS platform and the friendly communication with the visitors, fulfilled the goal and showed Karolina in an impressive format.
More than 500 HPC professionals, four days filled with speeches, discussions, parallel sessions, and project presentations, but also opportunities to strengthen relationships within the European HPC community and establish new contacts – this is how we can describe this year's successful EuroHPC Summit conference organized by the EuroHPC JU.
