US Department of Defense Revamps Major Cloud Procurement

Dating back to 1986, ISC is the world's longest running and Europe's foremost HPC conference. In June 2020, ISC held ISC2020 Digital, an online event for the HPC community. This report summarizes a presentation from that digital conference: an update on the EuroEXA project given by Peter Hopton, founder and innovator behind Iceotope and the VeryPC Group, as well as the chair of both the Data Centre Strategy and Future Computing Systems committees at the British Computer Society (the Chartered Institute for IT).

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Microsoft have entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), formalizing NOAA's commitment to using Microsoft Azure cloud computing resources in the pursuit of NOAA's mission to build a Climate[1]Ready Nation by 2030. Several initiatives are envisioned whereby NOAA scientists and engineers will work with Microsoft experts to leverage Azure's machine learning and HPC capabilities: ▪ Fast-tracking innovative contributions to NOAA Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) earth systems modeling and research ▪ Applying machine learning capabilities to improve models supporting air quality, smoke, and particulate pollution forecasts, as well as relevant NOAA climate models ▪ Accelerating NOAA Fisheries' survey and observations data collection and management ▪ Creating new ocean observations cataloging efforts ▪ Designing resilient and accessible weather modeling and forecasting that can incorporate external data sources with NOAA enterprise data