EuroHPC-Funded MINERVA Project to Advance AI Model Development in Europe
Feb. 13, 2025 -- Funded by EuroHPC JU, the MINERVA project is set to enhance Europe’s AI ecosystem, fostering innovation, collaboration, and skills development through HPC.
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MINERVA will provide services and training to support European AI communities, helping them leveraging advanced HPC capabilities for large-scale AI models, using current and upcoming EuroHPC supercomputing infrastructure.
The project will help users and developers to scale AI workflows, enabling the creation of complex models such as generative AI foundation models. This initiative will drive AI friendly scientific, societal, and industrial applications, while increasing HPC awareness and expertise in AI communities across Europe.
As a European knowledge hub for large-scale AI technology, the MINERVA project will provide training, education, and technical assistance in collaboration with the upcoming EuroHPC Academy and AI Factories.
Coordinated by CINECA Consorzio Interuniversitario (Italy), MINERVA brings together partners from six European member states: Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Italy), iGenius S.p.A. (Italy), Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (France), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France), Centre Informatique National de l’Enseignement Supérieur (France), Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Spain), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (Germany), Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (Germany), and Silo GenAI Oy (Finland).
Selected following the call DIGITAL-EUROHPC-JU-2023-AISC-03, the MINERVA project is receiving funding from EuroHPC JU with a total budget of €5,000,000 stemming from Horizon Europe funding programme. The project will last for 3 years and run until December 2027.
Background
The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) is a legal and funding entity created in 2018 to enable the European Union and EuroHPC participating countries to coordinate their efforts and pool their resources with the objective of making Europe a world leader in supercomputing.
In order to equip Europe with a world-leading supercomputing infrastructure, the EuroHPC JU has already procured nine supercomputers, located across Europe. Through the EuroHPC Access Calls, European scientists and users from the public sector and industry can benefit from these EuroHPC supercomputers, which rank among the world’s most powerful.
The EuroHPC JU is also deploying a European Quantum Computing infrastructure, integrating diverse European quantum computing technologies with supercomputers. As part of this effort, the JU has recently procured five quantum computers, currently being deployed in Poland, Czechia, France, Germany, and Spain, with additional systems coming soon to Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
In parallel, the EuroHPC JU is investing in 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.
Recently reviewed by means of Council Regulation (EU) 2024/1732, the EuroHPC JU received a new mandate to develop and operate AI factories. These comprehensive open AI ecosystems located around EuroHPC supercomputing facilities will support the growth of a highly competitive and innovative AI ecosystem in Europe. In December 2024, the EuroHPC JU selected the sites that will host the first European AI Factories, set to be deployed in 2025 across Europe: in Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Sweden.
Source: EuroHPC JU
