March 2020
Dear ETP4HPC Members and Partners,
The most significant issue we will have to face in the coming months is most certainly the current sanitary situation. Again, I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the late cancellation of our General Assembly on 5 March. It was not an easy decision to take at the time, but the rapid deterioration of the situation throughout Europe shows that the Steering Board was right to be prudent.
The main achievement of the last quarter is the publication of the fourth issue of our Strategic Research Agenda (SRA). This issue is yet another milestone in the evolution of our ecosystem. It is interesting to look back at the trajectory of our SRAs: SRA 1 looked at HPC system stack elements only, SRA 3 introduced Big Data and the concept of Extreme-Scale Demonstrators;. Then, our Blueprint (2019) proposed the concept of the Digital Continuum, which is expanded in this latest SRA 4 into the Digital Transcontinuum. This work is certain to continue into the next issues of the SRA.
I think the main achievement of our Association is that we have managed to build a very efficient, diverse, world-class mini-ecosystem of the internal and external experts contributing to SRA-related work. This enables us to fulfil our main mission: providing input to the EuroHPC Research and Innovation Advisory Board.
Our Association keeps growing. Our member count is at 96, close to the 100 mark, which we should reach before the end of the summer. Networking is a priority for most of our members and this is where our Office is going to place its efforts, considering the opportunities created by the newly announced EuroHPC 2020 calls. Not an easy task, taking into account the current restrictions.
I wish you all successful project preparation work!
Jean-Pierre Panziera
ETP4HPC Chairman
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