D2.1: PRACE role in the European HPC strategy and implementation

This deliverable reports on four main activities of Work Package 2 (WP2) during the first reporting period of the PRACE-6IP project: Status of PRACE 2; Support in defining PRACE role in the European HPC ecosystem in the EuroHPC era; PRACE services for EuroHPC; Legal support to PRACE Infrastructure and other work packages of the project. The reporting on the PRACE 2 status within the PRACE Implementation Phase projects was initiated during PRACE-4IP (D2.2 “Second Report on PRACE 2.0 Development”) and continued during PRACE-5IP (D2.1 “Report on PRACE 2, TNA, DECI and KPIs Year 1”1 and D2.3 “Report on PRACE 2, TNA and DECI Year 2”). This deliverable provides an update on this activity undertaken within the first year of the PRACE-6IP project. It reports on the status of the implementation and developments in the Second Period of operations of the PRACE pan-European Research Infrastructure, called PRACE 2, which began in 2017 and succeeded the PRACE agreement for the Initial Period (referred to as PRACE 1). The main focus of this deliverable represents the European HPC ecosystem in the EuroHPC era and PRACE’s role in relation to other HPC stakeholders and EuroHPC. After the organisation of several meetings with the European HPC stakeholders, PRACE defines its position towards EuroHPC and services it could offer, as well as the relations and overlaps of all main actors in the ecosystem. The new “HPC in Europe” portal (under development) established by PRACE is meant to reflect the well-established roles and provide the users a good overview of the current HPC services at a European level. The COVID-19 pandemic caused new and exceptional circumstances all over the world. A dedicated section reports on the legal and financial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the project. We also report on the practices of different project partners related to COVID-19 and on several initiatives that PRACE or PRACE partners started or joined in order to support the fight against the COVID-19