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European world-class supercomputer supports research and innovation

Ministry of Economic Affairs and EmploymentMinistry of Education and Culture
Publication date 7.6.2019 13.01 | Published in English on 10.6.2019 at 10.39
Press release

Finland will host a new pan-European supercomputer that will help build world-class computing and data services. The EuroHPC supercomputer will provide major benefits for research, industry, knowledge development, employment and competitiveness in Finland and Europe.

“The decision to place the supercomputer in Finland in CSC’s Kajaani datacentre came about as a result of joint effort by eight European countries. For Finland, EuroHPC Joint Undertaking is a massive opportunity that will lift our national data management and computing to a new level and that will also increase our competitiveness in cutting-edge research. This investment will place Finland among the leading datacentres not only in Europe but in the world,” said Permanent Secretary Anita Lehikoinen from the Ministry of Education and Culture.

“We seek to encourage businesses to use more high-performance computing in their activities. A supercomputer hosted in Finland will increase awareness of the possibilities of high-performance computing and support our efforts to attract top talent to Finland,” said Permanent Secretary Jari Gustafsson from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.

The pan-European supercomputer, which will be deployed by the end of 2020, will be about ten times more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer currently in Europe. Both Italy and Spain will host similar supercomputers besides Finland.

Backed by European cooperation and financing

The European Union and its Member States have committed to investing approximately EUR 1.4 billion in these projects. The budget for the data ecosystem placed in Kajaani will be around EUR 200 million, half of which will come from the European Union and half from the consortium countries led by Finland. Finland’s share of this financing will be EUR 50 million. Finnish scientists and public users will have guaranteed access to 24 per cent of the supercomputer’s operating time.

“EuroHPC continues the European collaboration on high-performance computing, from which European researchers have already benefited from over the years. The investment will make CSC's datacentre one of the world's largest players in the field of high-performance computing,” said Kimmo Koski, Managing Director, CSC.

EuroHPC will advance digital transformation, employment and competitiveness in a major way.

It will be one of the key drivers promoting digitalisation in the whole of Europe. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and platform economy, which are all parts of the European digital transformation, require data intensive computing.

“I am very proud to announce that today we have delivered on our promise to work together with the countries which are part of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and jointly deploy in the EU an integrated world-class supercomputing and data infrastructure. These top performing systems that we will be deploying will provide Europe with the high-quality capacities it needs to keep pace with its global competitors. They will help our scientists to tackle research questions highly relevant for our society in fields as diverse as climate change, personalised medicine, brain functioning, cosmology and many more, and accelerate innovation in areas vital for the competitiveness of our economy such as manufacturing, engineering or designing new materials and new drugs,” said Roberto Viola, Director General of DG CONNECT (Directorate General of Communication, Networks, Content and Technology) at the European Commission.

During the next steps, EuroHPC will develop European high-performance computing knowledge and technology with a view to having the one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers in Europe between 2022 and 2023, based on European technology.

Inquiries:

Erja Heikkinen, Director, Ministry of Education and Culture, tel. +358 2953 30101, erja.heikkinen (at) minedu.fi
Pirjo Kutinlahti, Minsterial Adviser, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, tel. +358 29 504 8260, pirjo.kutinlahti (at) tem.fi
Kimmo Koski, Managing Director, CSC, tel. +358 503 819 777, kimmo.koski (at) csc.fi

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