This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.
Today the Commission and the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) committed to open and widen access to the EU’s world-class supercomputing resources for European artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups, SMEs and the broader AI community as part of the EU AI Start-Up Initiative. To support the further development and scalability of AI models, access to world-class supercomputers that accelerate AI training and testing is crucial, reducing training time from months or years to a matter of weeks. The statement was made in the context of the fourth AI Alliance Assembly in Madrid and follows an announcement by President von der Leyen in her 2023 State of the Union address. European AI and high-performance computing (HPC) actors will closely cooperate to drive breakthrough innovation and enhance the competitiveness of the European AI industrial ecosystem. This will accelerate the development of AI and position the European Union as a global competitive leader. President Ursula von der Leyen said: “Europe is a leader in supercomputing, thanks to the investments we made in recent years. We have three state-of-the-art supercomputers in the EU. And we need to put this power to use. The access to Europe’s supercomputing infrastructure that we are announcing today will help start-ups lead the development and scale-up of artificial intelligence in a responsible manner, and in line with European values.” The European Union is currently at the forefront of supercomputing worldwide. Three of the EU’s supercomputers are world-class – LEONARDO, LUMI and MareNostrum5 – owing to the efforts of the EuroHPC JU. With the forthcoming extension of EuroHPC JU’s capabilities to exascale performance and beyond with the JUPITER and JULES VERNE consortium exascale supercomputers that will be even more powerful in working with AI models, European supercomputing resources will play a pivotal role in the creation and training of extensive foundational AI models. Participating States of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, with the support of the European Commission, will accelerate research, development, demonstration, and deployment efforts related to the European supercomputing infrastructure. This commitment aims to contribute to the Union’s overarching goal of establishing a global AI ecosystem that is trustworthy and responsible. As such, this will mean: Moreover, as part of the 2024 Commission Work Programme, we will propose changes to the Regulation on the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking to ensure a sustainable and durable access to European supercomputer capacity for European AI start-ups. In the 2023 State of the Union address, President von der Leyen called for the need to capitalise on Europe’s lead in supercomputing. She therefore announced a new initiative to open up Europe’s high-performance computers to AI start-ups to train their models, thus boosting innovation in AI. European Commission High-Performance Computing The European High-Performance Computing Joint UndertakingNext Steps
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Europe is a leader in supercomputing, thanks to the investments we made in recent years. We have three state-of-the-art supercomputers in the EU. And we need to put this power to use. The access to Europe’s supercomputing infrastructure that we are announcing today will help start-ups lead the development and scale-up of artificial intelligence in a responsible manner, and in line with European values. Today we fulfil a promise made to start-ups and SMEs, by giving them access to Europe’s supercomputers. What our innovative startups need is access to data and computing power to train their AI in the best possible way. With the opening today, we enable our innovators in Europe to become world leaders in the development of transparent and responsible AI made in Europe, aligned with our values. Supercomputing is an essential brick of Europe’s technological sovereignty. Our European leadership in high-performance computing – built through decades of vision, experience and investment – will now translate in scientific, technological and business competitiveness. With today’s Large AI Grand Challenge, we open up our world-leading supercomputers to train and finetune the most advanced foundation AI models. This will help start-ups bring down the training time for their latest AI models from several months to days or weeks – massively boosting our competitiveness in the world of AI.Quote(s)
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