The Bruno Kessler Foundation and the University of Trento will contribute to the creation of the National Research Center on High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing, one of the five National Centers planned under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). The initiative, led by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), will rise at the Bologna Technopole, the innovation hub promoted thanks to investments by the Italian government and the European Community. It will become fully operational in September 2022 and will be organized with a central hub and 10 spokes that will take care of different thematic areas of high scientific and technological interest.
Italy's largest system dedicated to supercomputing
The incoming center stands as a major step forward for the scientific community, not only nationally but also internationally.
It will be managed by the ICSC Foundation, which involves 51 members active in scientific research from all over Italy (including FBK and UniTrento) and will be able to count on funding of nearly 320 million euros from Next Generation EU funds under the Education and Research Mission of the PNRR. The Center will be the largest Italian system dedicated to high-performance computing, Big Data management and quantum computing. Within it, R&D activities will be carried out to foster innovation in the field of simulations and data analysis, promoting the best interdisciplinary skills in science and engineering.
The goal will be to empower the Italian HPC and Big Data infrastructure and develop new methods, numerical applications and software so as to integrate the computation, simulation, collection and analysis of data of interest to the research system and the productive and social sectors.
The Trentino contribution
Among the founding members of the new Center are FBK and the University of Trento, which will bring their own contribution confirming once again the excellence in science that distinguishes the Trentino region.
In particular, the Bruno Kessler Foundation, which has already participated in important projects in the Quantum Data field in the past, will contribute to the initiative through the Digital Society and Digital Industry Centers, focusing on the topics of digital society, smart city, climate, predictive medicine and omics data.
The University of Trento, and in particular the Department of Engineering and Information Science, will also have the opportunity to bring its contribution for the themes of Digital Society & Smart Cities and Earth & Climate, areas of strong interest for the Trentino region as well.
The 10 spokes of the Center for Supercomputing
The Supercomputing Center will aggregate Italian scientific communities of excellence in 10 different areas, will be structured on two equally relevant pillars (infrastructure and thematic areas), and will be organized according to the Hub and Spoke model.
The Spokes of the center will be:
- Future HPC & Big Data,
- Fundamental Research & Space Economy,
- Astrophysics & Cosmos Observations,
- Earth & Climate
- Enviroment & Natural Disaster,
- Multiscale Modeling & Engineering Applications,
- Materials & Molecular Sciences,
- In-Silico Madicine & Omics Data,
- Digital Society & Smart Cities
- Quantum Computing
