Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) researchers are today participating in the first European Processor Initiative (EPI) tutorial titled “First steps towards a made-in-Europe high-performance microprocessor” co-located with the 2019 ACM Europe Summer School on high-performance computing (HPC) architectures for artificial intelligence and dedicated applications. The tutorial will focus on giving an overview of the HPC processor landscape emphasizing, in particular, the European HPC strategy under EPI to the over 40 students registered.
The tutorial is organized in two parts: the first part focuses on presenting the HPC processor landscape and its main challenges, as well as the evolution of computer architecture towards heterogeneity and semiconductor technology. In the second part, the speakers will put EPI’s contribution into the context of a broader strategy implemented by the European Union – the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) – that will pool European resources to develop top-of-the-range exascale supercomputers for processing big data, based on competitive European technology.
“We are delighted that BSC is hosting the first EPI tutorial in Barcelona in collaboration with the ACM summer school. This tutorial provides students the perfect opportunity to learn about the innovative technologies being developed in Europe and their applications in fields from HPC to the automotive industry,” says Jesús Labarta, BSC Computer Sciences Director.
In EPI, BSC leads the Accelerator stream that will develop and demonstrate fully European processor intellectual properties (IPs) based on the RISC-V architecture. Acceleration is crucial to ensuring continued performance gains while reducing power consumption in computing. In addition, BSC is also involved in both the general purpose and automotive streams.
About EPI project
The European Processor Initiative (EPI) is a project currently implemented under the first stage of the Framework Partnership Agreement signed by the Consortium with the European Commission (FPA: 800928 and SGA1 XXX), whose aim is to design and implement a roadmap for a new family of low-power European processors for extreme scale computing, high-performance big data and a range of emerging applications. More information: https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu
Press release about the EPI project here: https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/EPI-Press-Release-June-2019-for-download.pdf