Professional Services Make Up a Sizable Portion of Overall HPC Budgets

High performance computers (HPCs) are recognized globally as fundamental tools for conducting R&D, innovation and advancing the economic competitiveness of nations. More countries than ever are increasing their spending on HPC infrastructure and critical associated areas such as AI, cloud, quantum computing, applications development and optimization, and workforce development and retention. The European Commission (EC), through the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU), Digital Europe Programme (DEP), and Horizon 2020/Europe funding programs, fully recognized this criticality for the European Union (EU) to fortify its global HPC leadership position. Further refining and extending its initial long-term mission, the JU has instituted a Four Pillar Strategy focusing on Infrastructure, Technologies, Applications, and Take-Up and Skill Sets, to define an approach to help realize its HPC ambitions. Continued execution of this strategy should well-position the EU to achieve its goals of deploying an integrated world-class supercomputing and data infrastructure.