India-EU -

• Strengthening the European HPC ecosystem by enabling European stakeholders to enhance HPC applications and codes in academic and industrial cases of interest for Europe and India in the identified priority domains.
• Improved sharing of information and expertise to solve common societal problems with the use of advanced computing.
• Facilitating the exchange of researchers and engineers between India and the EU and their access to advanced India and EuroHPC JU supercomputing resources.
• Improved international cooperation of EU-India HPC communities on advanced HPC application development, with a roadmap for future collaboration in targeted areas.

Support the implementation of the India-EU Intent of Cooperation on High Performance Computing and Quantum Technologies Agreement.

Proposals should address all of the following commonly identified HPC applications priority domains i) Biomedical and life sciences (e.g. bio-informatics, bio-molecular research), ii) Natural hazards (e.g. flood, glacier lake outburst floods (GLOF), landslide, seismic/tsunami, wildfires) and iii) weather and climate modelling. Activities should address performance measuring, test and optimisation for different architectures; promoting the exchange of researchers and engineers between India and the EU and elaborating a roadmap for future actions to enhance cooperation.

Proposals should focus on the optimisation and co-development of specific and clearly identified applications and codes, present a detailed software development plan with clear timeline for the implementations including quantitative KPIs, milestones and deliverables demonstrating the achieved improvements and the benefits of the cooperation. The large majority of resources should be associated with the technical work required for the implementation of the software development plan. Additional resources can be allocated to undertake complementary activities such as expertise exchange, skills development, training, collaboration actions etc. The expected contributions from the Indian collaborators should be clearly identified.

The proposal should clearly identify the targeted applications and all related codes that will be addressed in the proposal, including their user basis in Europe and India, the global impact in their domain and how the code is developed in the cooperation with Indian partners. The JU will provide a specific template for this purpose. Moreover, all software developed within the action must use a version control system in combination with an online repository that will be accessible to the funding authority and/or experts acting on behalf of the funding authority and allow the identification of the specific contributions made by the European partners and the Indian collaborators. Proposals are encouraged to use the common continuous integration and deployment platform currently implemented by other EU projects.

Proposals should clearly demonstrate a clear link with the existing European HPC Centres of Excellence under the calls HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2021-01, HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2023-01 and HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2023-03 supported in the identified priority domains. Fundamental research activities are not within the scope of the action.

Proposals should outline specifically how the exchange of researchers and engineers between India and the EU is facilitated.

Proposals should describe the facilitation of reciprocal access for European and Indian researchers to advanced Indian and EuroHPC JU supercomputing resources (notably the India “AIRAWAT – PSAI” and EU/EuroHPC’s LUMI, Leonardo and MareNostrum 5 supercomputers), in conformity with the respective supercomputers’ access policy. It is expected that the EuroHPC JU and Indian HPC entities will provide dedicated computing time in their respective infrastructure to run HPC applications of European and Indian users in the frame of this action on a reciprocal basis.

Indian partners will not be funded by the EU, and they are expected to participate in the project with their own funding. However, Indian partners should support the proposal by showing their willingness to cooperate in declarations of intent.

Proposals should also clearly demonstrate that all partners in the consortium have a significant and justified role, including appropriate deliverables under their responsibility which cover the specific contributions of each partner. Moreover, applications should include a well-balanced consortium with an appropriate distribution of resources and responsibilities, in line with the proposed work plan. Consortium members are expected to contribute to the project with a share of at least 5% of the total declared personnel resources. The expected duration of this action is 36 months.

The grant agreement signature and the start date of the grant will be coordinated with the signature and start date of a corresponding action supported by the Indian funding authorities to ensure alignment of the activities.

Background:

The EuroHPC JU Regulation gives a mandate to the EuroHPC JU to develop strategic research and innovation partnerships in HPC with third countries like Japan, Brazil, USA and India that enable advancing the work on HPC applications in domains of common interest, including facilitating access for researchers to EuroHPC JU resources and co-development of HPC applications. The European HPC ecosystem will be further reinforced by enabling European stakeholders to develop novel algorithms, implement them in state-of-the-art codes and architectures, and test the applications and codes in academic and industrial cases to benefit both Europe and like-minded third countries.

In 2023, EuroHPC JU will implement the India-EU Intent of Cooperation on High Performance Computing, W and Quantum Technologies Agreement reached by the European Union and India in November 2022. The 2022 India-EU Intent of Cooperation called for strengthening India-EU digital cooperation on High Performance Computing (HPC) with a particular emphasis on the optimisation of HPC applications in domains of common interest like biomedical/ drug discovery, climate change/natural hazards and quantum computing applications. The agreement also called for promoting the access to the EU supercomputers for Indian collaborators through the European collaborating partners and in conformity with the supercomputers’ access policy.

EuroHPC JU will launch a call to develop a collaboration in HPC with India, advancing the optimisation and co-development of HPC applications in domains of common interest, promoting the exchange of researchers and engineers between India and the EU.

News flashes