Innovation Europe: HPC failures, tolerate performance variability, and allow resources to
having very long lifetimes, on the order of decades, today's
be dynamically allocated among batch and interactive jobs.
abstractions will continue to evolve incrementally well beyond
Spotting anomalous behaviour may be viewed as a big data
2030.
problem, requiring techniques from data mining, clustering and As new technologies require major changes across the stack, a
structure detection.
vertical and multi-disciplinary funding approach is needed, from By 2030, disruptive technologies may have forced the introduction
applications and software systems through to new hardware
of new and currently unknown abstractions that are very different
architectures and potentially down to the enabling technologies.
from today. Such new programming abstractions may include domain-specific languages to separate scientific code from the
Download and read the EuroLab-4-HPC Long-Term Vision on
details of implementation, and provide greater opportunities for
High-Performance Computing from the EuroLab-4-HPC website
automatic optimization. Nevertheless, with scientific codebases
ateurolab4hpc.eu/roadmap to find out more.
BUSINESS IDEAS REBOOTED WITH HPC Through its Business Prototyping Projects (BPPs), Euro-Lab-4-HPC
• Who is the customer?
has been helping HPC research groups identify and evaluate
• What problem does the technology solve for them?
business cases for their research results. Teams consisting of the
• What should the offering be (product/service/intellectual
principal investigator, an entrepreneurial lead and a mentor with
property)?
industry experience are formed around each technology. Each
• How do we reach the customers with this offering?
team is then guided through a method of quickly and effectively
• How and how much should we charge for it?
identifying and testing business-related hypotheses, such as: To test the most critical business-related hypotheses, each team was supported with a grant of €25,000.
Flying high with real-time air-traffic management Alex Martí, Arnau Folch and Monica de Mier, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) was
models and the lack of customer-based solu-
based solutions for air traffic management
awarded a EuroLab-4-HPC 2017 BPP grant to
tions to process the information prevents the
during
help bring its SORT-ATM (Solutions on Real
aviation industry from accessing this infor-
atmospheric natural hazards. The impact
Time for Air Traffic Management) technology
mation in a way which could enhance their
assessment is based on the calculations of a
to market.
decision-making during such events.
unique algorithm that employs in-house HPC
Atmospheric dispersion of hazardous sub-
SORT-ATM is a user-friendly HPC software
for flight plan configurations and schedule,
stances such as volcanic eruptions and sand-
application capable of providing customer-
aircraft specifics, forecasted weather condi-
emergency
situations
involving
atmospheric dispersion models, parameters
storms influences many economic markets,
tions and other relevant air traffic manage-
and poses a variety of problems to the avia-
ment and asset data from clients.
tion industry. For example, the presence of airborne volcanic ash at low and jet-cruise
The BPP grant has allowed us to learn about
atmospheric levels compromises the safety
the lean startup methodology and to inter-
of aircraft operations and forces re-routing of
view potential customers (and other external
aircraft to prevent encounters with volcanic
stakeholders) to get relevant insights. It has
ash clouds.
also allowed us to undertake thorough market analysis with the help of a consul-
The forecast of these catastrophic events
tancy company specialized in aviation.
relies on the development, implementation and execution of computationally intensive
Thanks to the BPP grant, the business idea is
atmospheric transport models in order to
now on the way to becoming a BSC spin-off
simulate the dispersal of each hazardous
company.
substance. The need for HPC to run these
30 HiPEACINFO 52