Latvia Joins Competitive and Innovative Supercomputing Ecosystem
To provide Latvian research institutions and companies with an opportunity to use high-performance computing (supercomputing), on 25 February 2021, the government adopted the decision on participation of Latvia in the projects of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking.
EuroHPC joint undertaking provides access to a new European supercomputing infrastructure for the users from academic institutions, industrial enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses and public sector in any part of the European Union. The joint undertaking also supports the development of global scientific, public and industrial applications in such fields as personalized medicine, bioenergy, weather forecasting and climate change, invention of new materials and medicines, oil and gas deposit exploration, design of new aircrafts and motor vehicles and smart cities.
The joint undertaking EuroHPC was established by the Regulation of the Council of 28 September 2018 “On Establishment of the European High-performance Computing Joint Undertaking”, which specifies that Latvia is a participant of the joint undertaking EuroHPC.
The joint undertaking EuroHPC represents a partnership of public and private sectors, with participation of the European Commission, EU member states, as well as Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe associated states. The task of the joint undertaking EuroHPC is to develop, implement and maintain EU integrated global supercomputing and data infrastructure and to develop and support a highly competitive and innovative high performance computing ecosystem.
The EuroHPC project EuroCC is particularly topical for Latvia; it is aimed at development of the network of national HPC competence centers across Europe that would coordinate all national initiatives, facilitating access of the Latvian institutions to the European HPC competence and opportunities in different industrial sectors and fields.
Riga Technical University (RTU) is the leading EuroCC project partner in Latvia. Together with the University of Latvia, RTU ensures all necessary activities to establish a national HPC competence center in Latvia and to integrate successfully into the European network of HPC competence centers. RTU possesses the biggest HPC capacity in Latvia. RTU HPC Center established in 2012 has accumulated relevant professional experience and built the supercomputing infrastructure that may be used in both engineering and other fields. RTU HPC Center has established cooperation with the largest Latvian research institutes and universities and is open for cooperation with the industry.
