Europe CRESTA Project Gears Up Software for Exascale

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A new consortium of leading European sites has come together to deliver the software needed to support and exploit the massive Exascale systems of the future. The €8.3M CRESTA project (Collaborative Research into Exascale Systemware, Tools and Applications) integrates thirteen leading European sites to deliver this technology. The project is funded under the EU Framework 7 research program and represents part of a significant investment in Exascale research by Europe. This computing challenge cannot be solved with existing approaches.

The consortium has shown that software is critical to successfully achieving exascale performance. CRESTA’s experts include four of Europe’s leading HPC centres (EPCC, HLRS, CSC and PDC), a world-leading supplier of HPC systems (Cray Europe), seven application owners from science and industry (DLR, KTH, ABO, JYU, UCL, ECMWF and CRSA), Europe’s leading HPC tool company (Allinea) and Europe’s leading performance analysis organization (TUD). The project has two integrated strands linked via a cyclical co-design process: one focused on enabling a key set of co-design applications for exascale, the other focused on building and exploring appropriate “systemware” for exascale platforms.

Exascale computing is posing new challenges on the entire software stack. A multidisciplinary approach combining hardware specialists, computer scientists, mathematicians, application developers and domain scientists is needed to address these challenges,” explains Dr Erwin Laurie, director of PDC’s High Performance Computing Centee. “CRESTA brings all of these competences together in co-design teams working on important European software packages to foster Europe’s leadership in HPC software.”

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