The Latvian Government grants funding to the EuroCC project
On February 25, the Cabinet of Ministres supported Latvia’s participation in the EuroHPC project, this provides an opportunity to finance the EuroCC project that had already been launched.
In June 2018, Latvia decided to join the EuroHPC initiative, which later became the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, this decision means that the Latvian government agreed to take 50% of the project co-financing. The EuroHPC JU is a public-private partnership with the participation of the European Commission, EU Member States, as well as Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe Associated Countries. The Joint Undertaking aims to promote the development of world-class high-performance computing (HPC) and data infrastructure development in the European Union.
The EuroHPC project National Competence Centres in the framework of EuroHPC (EuroCC), was launched on 1 September 2020 and Latvia is represented by the Institute of Numerical Modelling of the University of Latvia together with the HPC Centre of Riga Technical University (RTU). As written earlier, the EuroCC project aims to create a network of high-performance computing competence centres in Europe. The project involves 33 countries, the project will last for 2 years with total funding of more than €56 million.
The main task of the competence centres established during the project will be to create a single support structure to promote the use of supercomputing opportunities in higher education, research, public administration and industry. The competence centres will pool the competences, experience and computing resources available in all EU countries.
“We are very pleased with the decision taken by MK. This gives us confidence in the successful achievement of the project objectives in Latvia – the creation of a Supercomputing Competency Centre SuperS”, says Ilmārs Slaidiņš, project manager. “Right before the launch of the project, IZM and VIAA gave us guarantees that we can commit ourselves and sign a contract with EuroHPC. We already received some of the EU’s guaranteed funding last year to launch the project.”
During the first 6 months of the project, the project road map of the Latvian Supercomputing Competency Centre has already been developed, seminars and meetings with companies have been organised, some experts have been enlisted, as well as the identification of existing competencies and needs has been initiated.
More on the decision may be read on the site of the Ministry of Education and Science – https://www.izm.gov.lv/lv/jaunums/latvija-pievienojas-konkuretspejigai-un-inovativai-superdatosanas-ekosistemai
