VISUALIZATION
European supercomputer project launched at SC07
The availability of computing power is increasingly becoming a critical factor for success in science and industry: whether we're dealing with the climate, genetics or engineering– researchers are relying more and more on advanced computing power to stay at the forefront of international competition. The PRACE Initiative was launched to enable European scientists and engineers to access world class resources when it comes to supercomputing. These will constitute the Tier 0 infrastructure, at the top of the European HPC pyramidal ecosystem. On April 17th 2007, a declaration of intent to create a European supercomputer research infrastructure was issued by representatives from research organisations in 14 European countries. 
PRACE will provide researchers in Europe with access to world class supercomputers. The PRACE consortium is made up of Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Finland, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. Five principal partners of this consortium have declared interest in hosting one of the research infrastructure’s facilities, and to contribute adequately to its funding, together with the European Commission 7th Framework Programme and the other partners. Estimated investment is anticipated to be in the range from € 400 -€600 million covering the first five years of operation. A first step towards establishing this world class European Research infrastructure was made by the consortium, when its proposal for a preparatory phase project, submitted to the 7th Framework Programme for the funding of large infrastructures, was successfully evaluated by the European Commission’s DG INFSO. This funding will enable the launch of the Project PRACE, under coordination by Professor Achim Bachem, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Research Centre Jülich, Germany. The project will start on January 1st 2008 and will last for 2 years, with a total budget of € 20 million. Half of the funding (€10million) will be provided by the European Commission under the FP7 Capacities programme grant agreement INFSO-RI-211528. The project will: • Prepare the contracts to establish the PRACE permanent Research Infrastructure as a single Legal Entity in 2010 including governance, funding, procurement, and usage strategies. • Perform the technical work to prepare operation of the Tier-0 systems in 2009/2010 including deployment and benchmarking of prototypes for Petaflop/s systems and porting, optimising, peta-scaling of applications In order to meet the challenges of putting together highly effective petascale supercomputers, the PRACE Project will need to engage with vendors as required for procurement processes, precommercial procurement of innovative technologies and equipment. Cooperative R&D contracts may be issued to prepare for the utilisation of future technologies. To further the aim of enabling the academic and industrial research in Europe to develop and use world class HPC, contacts have already been established with many scientific communities, in particular those involved in helping to develop the very Science Case on which this effort is based. In addition the following European institutes/projects have been keen to support the PRACE Project application for the EC Grant: European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA), Euro Bioinformatics Institute within the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EBI / EMBL), European Network for Earth System Modelling (ENES), European Space Agency (ESA), European Science Foundation (ESF), MOLSIMU COST action on Molecular Simulations to Nanoscale Experiments, Psi-k network the European Umbrella Network for Electronic Structure Calculations. PRACE also intends to work in close collaboration with other European research infrastructures, notably those in the comprehensive ESFRI road map. In order to ensure the seamless internetworking of key European research infrastructures, contacts have been established with Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications (DEISA), European Grid Initiative (EGI), HPC-Europa, Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute- Europe(OMII-Europe). PRACE also acknowledges the contributions made by the ESFRI and e-IRG panels to help in early stages, notably when setting up the HPC in Europe Task Force in 2006. PRACE will be represented at Super Computing 07 on the booths of its partners: Austrian Grid booth 3050, GAUSS represented by HLRS booth 2541, NIC FZ-Jülich booth 2633 and by LRZ booth 3309, GENCI represented on CEA booth 2839, GRNET booth 2527, BSC booth 2233, NWO booth 2409, EPSRC represented on EPCC booth 3019, PSNC booth 2603 A presentation of the project will be given on Monday November 12th, at 4pm, at the Peppermill Casino Hotel, 2707 S.Virginia Street, Reno NV89502 in Valley View meeting room 1734. Coffee will be available from 3.30pm.
PRACE will provide researchers in Europe with access to world class supercomputers. The PRACE consortium is made up of Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Finland, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. Five principal partners of this consortium have declared interest in hosting one of the research infrastructure’s facilities, and to contribute adequately to its funding, together with the European Commission 7th Framework Programme and the other partners. Estimated investment is anticipated to be in the range from € 400 -€600 million covering the first five years of operation. A first step towards establishing this world class European Research infrastructure was made by the consortium, when its proposal for a preparatory phase project, submitted to the 7th Framework Programme for the funding of large infrastructures, was successfully evaluated by the European Commission’s DG INFSO. This funding will enable the launch of the Project PRACE, under coordination by Professor Achim Bachem, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Research Centre Jülich, Germany. The project will start on January 1st 2008 and will last for 2 years, with a total budget of € 20 million. Half of the funding (€10million) will be provided by the European Commission under the FP7 Capacities programme grant agreement INFSO-RI-211528. The project will: • Prepare the contracts to establish the PRACE permanent Research Infrastructure as a single Legal Entity in 2010 including governance, funding, procurement, and usage strategies. • Perform the technical work to prepare operation of the Tier-0 systems in 2009/2010 including deployment and benchmarking of prototypes for Petaflop/s systems and porting, optimising, peta-scaling of applications In order to meet the challenges of putting together highly effective petascale supercomputers, the PRACE Project will need to engage with vendors as required for procurement processes, precommercial procurement of innovative technologies and equipment. Cooperative R&D contracts may be issued to prepare for the utilisation of future technologies. To further the aim of enabling the academic and industrial research in Europe to develop and use world class HPC, contacts have already been established with many scientific communities, in particular those involved in helping to develop the very Science Case on which this effort is based. In addition the following European institutes/projects have been keen to support the PRACE Project application for the EC Grant: European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA), Euro Bioinformatics Institute within the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EBI / EMBL), European Network for Earth System Modelling (ENES), European Space Agency (ESA), European Science Foundation (ESF), MOLSIMU COST action on Molecular Simulations to Nanoscale Experiments, Psi-k network the European Umbrella Network for Electronic Structure Calculations. PRACE also intends to work in close collaboration with other European research infrastructures, notably those in the comprehensive ESFRI road map. In order to ensure the seamless internetworking of key European research infrastructures, contacts have been established with Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications (DEISA), European Grid Initiative (EGI), HPC-Europa, Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute- Europe(OMII-Europe). PRACE also acknowledges the contributions made by the ESFRI and e-IRG panels to help in early stages, notably when setting up the HPC in Europe Task Force in 2006. PRACE will be represented at Super Computing 07 on the booths of its partners: Austrian Grid booth 3050, GAUSS represented by HLRS booth 2541, NIC FZ-Jülich booth 2633 and by LRZ booth 3309, GENCI represented on CEA booth 2839, GRNET booth 2527, BSC booth 2233, NWO booth 2409, EPSRC represented on EPCC booth 3019, PSNC booth 2603 A presentation of the project will be given on Monday November 12th, at 4pm, at the Peppermill Casino Hotel, 2707 S.Virginia Street, Reno NV89502 in Valley View meeting room 1734. Coffee will be available from 3.30pm.