The European HPC Professional Traineeship Programme (HPCTRAIN) to strengthen Europe’s supercomputing skills

The HPCTRAIN project aims to strengthen Europe’s HPC skills ecosystem by offering professional traineeships to early-career professionals across Europe, providing opportunities to gain practical experience in a professional and non-academic environment, networking opportunities and exposure to the industry.

Designed to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and the professional use of HPC, the programme will enable participants to gain practical experience working on HPC-related projects, while developing the advanced technical and transversal skills required to pursue careers in this rapidly evolving field.

Calls for traineeship applications will be announced on a rolling basis, with four annual cut-off dates via the project website (where interested applicants can apply from). This programme will match trainee candidates with relevant training opportunities offered by private companies and public organisation that offer professional career paths centred around HPC technology, operation and applications. A dedicated Industrial Advisory Board with representations from the EuroHPC JU private members (ETP4HPC, DARIO/BDVA and QuIC), PRACE Industrial Advisory Committee and additional members from HPC industry will help to define, promote and execute the traineeship programme.

This project will also include monitoring activities to review the impact of these traineeships and whether they effectively bridge the gap between education and the job market.

By equipping young professionals with HPC skills, HPCTRAIN is expected to significantly contribute to Europe's digital technology supply chain. The initiative will enhance workforce capacity in critical segments such as HPC technology, operation, applications, and software development, supporting the digital evolution within the European Union (EU).

More Details

The HPCTRAIN consortium, coordinated by the Forschungszentrum Julich GmbH (FZJ), comprises 12  diverse organisations (universities, supercomputing centres and companies) such as IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, University of Stuttgart, LuxProvide, University of Luxembourg, PRACE, , CSC, University of Gallway, INESC TEC and University of Ljubljana that offer a diversified traineeship programme.

The project officially started in January 2026 and will last 48 months. 

The HPC Train project has been selected following the call DIGITAL-EUROHPC-JU-2022-TRAINING-03 and is funded by the Digital Europe programme, with a total EU contribution of around EUR 5 million.

About EuroHPC JU

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  13 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. HPC-TRAIN is part of this R&I strategy, where widening the use of HPC and developing related skills form a core part of the EuroHPC JU’s mission

With the recent adoption of Council Regulation (EU) 2026/150, the EuroHPC JU’s mandate has been expanded with new action pillars dedicated to the deployment of AI Gigafactories across Europe and the advancement of quantum technologies.