Thirteen project partners in four work packages with a clear mission: to support the HPC community in NRW in the best possible way and thus advance NRW as a research location in the long term. At the start of the third project phase of HPC.NRW (2025 - 2028), the HPC.NRW members met at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf for a groundbreaking project meeting.
New management committee
In addition to an overview of the new funding phase and finances, the election of the new management body was an important item on the agenda. This body consists of four elected representatives from the project members. At least one Tier 2 location must be represented. The consortium leader RWTH Aachen University is a permanent member of the steering committee. In addition to these five voting members, the four work package coordinators (non-voting) complete the steering committee. The newly established committee is responsible for managing the overall project, including coordinating fundamental changes to the structure and tasks of the work packages and changes to the use of funds with the HPC working group. The management committee represents the competence network in all DH-NRW committees, prepares internal and external evaluations and carries them out. It is the escalation body for decisions that could not be made in the consortium.
Dominik Brands, University of Duisburg-Essen, Rainer Bockholt, University of Bonn, Sebastian Manten, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and Stefan Wesner, University of Cologne were elected. Matthias Müller is the representative of RWTH Aachen University (consortium leader). Michaela Bleuel, coordinator of WP1 (project management), Marc-André Hermanns, coordinator of WP2 (user support), Roland Pabel, coordinator of WP3 (operational cooperation) and Robert Schade, coordinator of WP4 (joint innovation activities) complete the steering committee as guests.
Common tasks and objectives
Following the election of the steering committee, the 40 or so participants got down to group work in the four work packages. Together, innovations in the current project phase and necessary structures were defined. In addition to the medium and long-term goals, there was also a lively discussion about cooperation in the individual work packages and ideas were collected. The work packages will work closely together to provide optimum support for HPC users in NRW and thus ensure that the HPC community is provided with nationwide coverage.
Connection between HPC and AI
A groundbreaking measure in the current project phase is the integration of the Jülich Supercomputing Center (JSC) as the thirteenth project member. In addition to being able to carry out very large computing time projects, the JSC brings proven expertise in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to the project and is therefore a strong partner in the HPC.NRW competence network.