Portuguese MEP Maria da Graça Carvalho was tasked by the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee with the legislative report on EuroHPC - Joint Undertaking for European High Performance Computing, an initiative launched in 2018 that aims to make Europe world leader in the field of supercomputing.
The initiative involves 32 countries - eight of which will receive one of the eight new supercomputers that will serve all member states - and two private partners. Three of the computers will rank amongst the five most powerful in the world and the other five in the world’s top 50.
Maria da Graça Carvalho, who is deputy coordinator of the European People's Party (PPE) group at ITRE, will address the new EuroHPC mission, launched in September this year by the European Commission, for which an ambitious budget was proposed totaling eight billion euros.
The European Commission's aim is to create a network capable of serving all European sectors, including industry, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the public sector, regardless of where they are in the European Union.
The potential for supercomputing is limitless, allowing from monitoring and mitigating the effects of climate change, to speeding up the research for new drugs and treatments for diseases like COVID-19 or the development of safer and more environmentally friendly cars and aircraft.