PRACE to implement STRATOS – a Permanent Research Platform

Fourteen partners have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create a permanent research platform called STRATOS. The MoU was signed by 12 PRACE partners, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe, and two associated partners.

STRATOS stands for “PRACE advisory group for Strategic Technologies”. STRATOS has the goal to become a unique collaboration of PRACE partners and industry either directly or through consortia which include PRACE members. The objective of STRATOS is to foster the development of HPC (High Performance Computing) technologies in Europe.

The MoU was signed on 16 December, 2008 in Barcelona, Spain. 12 PRACE partners and one associated partner, the European industrial-academic association PROSPECT signed the MoU. The association Ter@tec acceded to the STRATOS MoU on 12 March, 2009.

Industrial and other innovative European HPC development projects engaged in development or evaluation of HPC technology can become members of STRATOS for the runtime of the projects.

The final cooperation agreement of the STRATOS partnership will be established as soon as the PRACE research infrastructure has become a European legal entity. During an initial period, STRATOS shall be governed by the MoU.

The following PRACE partners signed the MoU: Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), Germany; Universität Stuttgart (HLRS), Germany; Leibniz-Rechenzentrum der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (BADW-LRZ), Germany; Grand Equipement National de Calcul Intensif (GENCI), France; Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Spain; Netherlands National Computing Facilities Foundation (NCF), the Netherlands; Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), Sweden; CINECA Consorzio Interuniversitario (CINECA), Italy; CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd. (CSC), Finland; Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ), Switzerland; Greek Research and Technology Network S.A (GRNET), Greece and Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC), Poland.