High Performance Computing (HPC) in Vlaanderen - Koninklijke ...

SummaryThe Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten (KVAB),Class of Sciences, has taken the initiative to deliver an advice on the role and needs fora dynamic strategy towards High Performance Computing (HPC) in Flanders.The starting point of this initiative resides in the observation that in the presentsituation, Flanders, as well as Federal Belgium, is not well prepared to take position inthe large scale applications of HPC. This leads to a serious risk of seeing Flanders bedistanced on the worldwide scientific and technological scene, and in the way towardsscientific and technological innovation.The KVAB Task group decided to set up a large inquiry among all the scientificestablishments in Flanders, to collect the HPC needs and wishes from its scientificcommunity. This information has been evaluated in comparison with the worldwideimpact of HPC on scientific innovation and breakthrough research.In addition, a review of the existing HPC infrastructures worldwide, in Europe and in thesurrounding countries has been performed. An essential characteristic of the HPCorganization is a pyramidal structure, with a basic level of HPC infrastructures at localinstitutions (Tier 1), followed by regional HPC centers with a high capacity of the orderof 10,000 to 50,000 processors or cores (Tier 2). The third level at the Petaflop scalecan only be reached at the European level (Tier 3).The most representative European HPC centers are connected by a high speedEuropean network, in particular within the projects DEISA and EGEE.The creation of a Tier 2 HPC center in Flanders is strongly recommended,based on the collected information.This should not be realized at the expense of the existing Tier 1 facilities at theuniversities en research institutions, which should be further developed to establish asolid basis on which the pyramidal HPC structure relies.In addition to the capacity to perform large scale HPC projects, it is expected that theHPC center will play an important role in support of the users, for tasks such asparallelization, implementation, software engineering, pre- and postprocessing.The budgetary implications are estimated around 10M€, with an annual operationalbudget of 5M€, taking into account a depreciation period of 3 years and a support staffof the order of 15 coworkers.Additional returns from a Flemish regional HPC center are expected through thestimulation of developments in the area of applied mathematics, algorithms, imageprocessing and visualization, the development of software engineering, the stimulationfor high speed networking technologies, new HPC applications towards linguistics,finances, and new opportunities for the pharmaceutical industries in the developmentof new medications.The KVAB is convinced that an initiative towards a regional HPC center inFlanders, would generate an exceptional impulse towards the development ofscientific excellence and breakthrough research in all areas.71