Two leading supercomputing facilities in the UK have combined to create a national computing competence centre as part of a Europe-wide network.
The UK centre will be led jointly by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Hartree Centre and EPCC, the supercomputing centre at the University of Edinburgh.
Named EuroCC@UK, the facility will form part of a new network of over 30 national competence centres across Europe, funded by the European Commission.
STFC said it will be open to the public sector, academia and industry and the programme will support AI research and innovation. The network will provide a platform for sharing best practice and expertise in advanced computing.
The focus in the UK is expected to be on high performance computing (HPC), high performance data analytics (HPDA) and AI. It will involve enabling SMEs to benefit from these technologies,
EuroCC@UK will map current expertise in the UK and develop training, software support and industry engagement programmes. It will also carry out awareness-creation activities aimed at keeping the UK’s scientific and industrial research communities engaged in European HPC.
Best practice
Alison Kennedy, director of the Hartree Centre, said: “The National Competence Centre allows the UK to contribute to and to learn from international best practice in supporting the wider uptake of HPC, HPDA and AI by industry and academia.
“This collaboration shows how UK Research and Innovation continues to play an active role in the European research and innovation landscape.
“The roadmapping activities will allow us to identify gaps in our national provision of support to industry and to benchmark ourselves against the best in Europe. With the increase in UK investment in computing e-infrastructure, the findings will enable the UK to better target our resources to make the most effective use of the new capacity for economic and societal benefit.”
Image from iStock, Gorodenkoff
