The governing bodies of the ICSC Foundation, which will manage one of the five National Centers envisaged by the PNRR National Recovery and Resilience Plan, took office today, 19 July. Thus was born the National Research Center in High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing which, proposed by the INFN National Institute of Nuclear Physics, has 51 founding members distributed throughout the country, coming from the public and private sectors, from the world of scientific research and industry. The new National Center will be based on the Bologna Technopole, a citadel of innovation promoted by the Emilia-Romagna Region, also thanks to investments by the Italian Government and the European Community, which already hosts the Data Center of the European Weather Center (ECMWF) and shortly will host the Leonardo supercomputer managed by CINECA, and the INFN Calculation Center, and will network and systemize the specific knowledge, skills and resources of companies operating throughout Italy in multiple areas, with the aim of building an infrastructure distributed and transversal that supports scientific research and the productive world in the innovation and digitization of the country.
ICSC, in line with the strategic objectives of the PNRR, will achieve its specific objectives by promoting the careers of young people and initiatives for overcoming the gender gap in professional careers and between the North and South of the country.
To accomplish its mission, ICSC will count on funding from Next Generation EU funds in the field of personal and public health, the creation of smart cities, sustainable development. The management of big data is therefore a priority, which requires huge computing resources, the development of innovative technological solutions, such as quantum computers, and increasingly advanced mathematical and statistical algorithms and models. In this context, supercomputing, numerical simulations, artificial intelligence, machine learning, frontier technologies are essential tools to encourage developments and discoveries both in the industrial world and in the world of scientific research, and therefore for economic growth and cultural heritage of our society. ICSC aims to become an internationally attractive ecosystem, strengthening Italian competitiveness and contributing to Europe’s leadership in the sector.
This is the scenario in which the National HPC, Big Data and Quantum Computing Center was born, with the triple purpose of building an Italian supercomputing infrastructure, of aggregating research and innovation resources in the most strategic sectors for the country, and of position itself as the national platform to support scientific and industrial initiatives.
PNRR: THE NATIONAL SUPER CALCULATION CENTER IS BORN
