NEWSFLASHES

The Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) has been a hosting member in the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE)—a trans-European organization dedicated to providing high-performance computing (HPC) resources across Europe—since its 2010 inauguration. As a key member of PRACE, GCS and the centre directors have long served as advocates and advisors for the organization, and one centre director was recently elected to help lead PRACE.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Lippert, member of the GCS board and Director of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), was elected as Chair of the PRACE Council during the group’s 30th meeting, held in Amsterdam on June 18. Lippert follows Prof. Dr. Ir. Anwar Osseyran of the Netherland’s SURF/SURFsara. Dr. Janne Ignatius, Programme Director at CSC—the IT Center for Science in Finland, will serve as vice-chair, succeeding Dr. Sergi Girona from the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre in Spain.

“PRACE is deeply grateful to Anwar and Sergi for their great commitment to shaping the second, very successful phase of the partnership,” Lippert said. “The challenge ahead is to provide true exascale computing capability for science and industry in Europe. As PRACE Council Chair, and together with my colleagues and our scientific and industrial advisors, I am keen to bring the top-level HPC provision and support of PRACE together with the exascale systems of the coming EuroHPC joint undertaking.”

Lippert will serve a two-year term in the post. The PRACE Council serves as the highest decision-making body in PRACE, overseeing the research infrastructure and the users’ access to resources across the PRACE member organizations. He was selected as the German delegate in January, 2018, but has long been involved in the creation and guidance of PRACE since before it was officially founded. He served as an advisor to Forschungzentrum Jülich Director and GCS founding member Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem, one of the founding Council Chairs of PRACE.

-Eric Gedenk, e.gedenk@gauss-centre.eu