EuroHPC JU Launches Call for Proposals for a European Benchmarking Framework

Through this action, the EuroHPC JU supports the development of a unified, modular, extensible, and well-documented  framework for benchmarking, along with a well-maintained and continuously updated  benchmarking suite. This unified approach will provide widely accepted and applicable metrics to validate and compare HPC hardware, software and system performance.

 Benchmarks allow users to measure and compare the performance of different computing  platforms, and this initiative  supports  end-users to identify the most suitable HPC systems for specific applications or use cases. Likewise, the call supports system administrators optimizing operations with respect to throughput and energy consumption. 

The call addresses two topics: 

HORIZON-JU-EUROHPC-2024-BENCHMARK-05-01: A European HPC-centric Benchmarking Framework

The first topic addresses the development of a benchmarking framework for exascale HPC and HPC-AI. It aims to provide a fair comparison methodology among different HPC systems. This is achieved by ensuring reproducibility, repeatability, and replicability of the suggested metrics. 

The call welcomes proposals expected to define, deploy, collect, and standardise exascale HPC and HPC-AI benchmarks. The proposals should offer a fine-grained and fair comparison methodology for different HPC systems and define performance metrics, particularly those related to energy efficiency. They should also standardise all benchmarking input and output formats. An accompanying framework must offer a structured workflow to capture and streamline the entire benchmarking process.

HORIZON-JU-EUROHPC-2024-BENCHMARK-05-02: A European Benchmarking Framework for hybrid quantum-classical computing

The second topic addresses the  development of benchmarks that accurately reflect hybrid workflows involving HPC and quantum computing.  Proposals should  address essential metrics able to measure throughput, latency, and energy consumption. All developed benchmarks should generally be hardware agnostic to enable cross-device verification and proposals should identify and define common metrics to compare different qubit modalities, as well as the depth of the achieved HPC-QC integration.

Proposals are expected to propose and maintain a detailed strategic development roadmap, which anticipates future developments in QC and hybrid HPC-QC, including emerging technologies, and foresees the hardware agnostic and hardware inclusive support of hybrid HPC-QC systems. 

More Details

This call for proposals, HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05, is open for submission until 24 March 2026, 17:00 (CET).  

The total indicative budget available for this call is EUR 4,000,000, funded under the Horizon Europe programme. 

More details can be found on this dedicated page.

Background

The EuroHPC JU is a legal and funding entity that brings together the European Union and participating countries to coordinate efforts and pool resources with the objective of making Europe a world leader in supercomputing.    

To equip Europe with a cutting-edge supercomputing infrastructure, the EuroHPC JU has already procured 12 supercomputers, distributed across Europe including JUPITER and Alice Recoque, Europe’s first exascale systems. 

European scientists and users from the public sector and industry can benefit from EuroHPC supercomputers via the EuroHPC Access Calls no matter where in Europe they are located, to advance science and support the development of a wide range of applications with industrial, scientific and societal relevance for Europe. 

Currently, the EuroHPC JU is also overseeing the implementation of 19 AI factories (AIF) across Europe, complemented by  thirteen AI Factory Antennas, to offer free, customised support to SMEs and startups. 

Additionally, the EuroHPC JU is deploying a European Quantum Computing infrastructure, integrating diverse European quantum computing technologies with existing supercomputers.

The EuroHPC JU also funds  research and innovation projects to develop a full European supercomputing supply chain, from processors and software to applications to be run on these supercomputers and know-how to develop strong European HPC expertise.