Flash from Ter@tec Forum 2010

The Ter@tec Forum 2010 on high performance simulation for innovation and competitiveness is arguably one of the very most important IT events this year in Europe.

We will write in a more detailed way later but three big messages that are crucial for the economic future of Europe seem to be emerging.

The economic stakes are extraordinarily high. Science - including the applied sciences that drive business innovation - no longer rests only on the two traditional pillars of theory and experimentation. Numerical simulation with HPC (high performance computing) has become the third pillar of progress in numerous domains such as aeronautical design, energy, weather, transportation… Presentation after presentation demonstrated that not only could things be done much faster with HPC, but that numerical simulation has made it possible to do things that could not be done before.

The bad news is that, once again, Europe is lagging. Relative to the size of their economies, investments in HPC are twice as important in the US as in Europe. On the high end, supercomputing spending increased by 25% 2007-2009 despite the recession, while it declined 9% in Europe. Even countries such as S. Korea are putting in a stronger relative performance than Europe. China and Russia are also moving forward. All of these countries have recognised that high performance numerical simulation is now crucial for innovation, which is today the true “wealth of nations.”

There is however some good news, starting with Ter@tec itself, the core of a European high performance simulation technopole, which will work together with others in the European HPC space. The EU is now taking HPC very seriously. At the Forum, the quality and senior level of the speakers, together with the quality of the presentations is evidence that the ecosystem is coming together. (The presentations were “low key, high competence”, the exact opposite of what one usually finds in IT events.)

The announcement from the CEA – that it had put into operation the Tera 100 supercomputer built by Bull around the new Intel chips – was especially interesting. As the CEA explained, the system was developed through very close cooperation with the supplier, a true example of “co-innovation”. In a domain where applications tend to be close to the machines, we expect that this sort of “customer-driven co-innovation” may well be a key model for progress in the future.

The competitive stakes are indeed high. Still, all in all, Europe has the ingredients for success, but it will take smart investments and lots of work to pull it all together and make “high performance happen”.