The Computation-based Science and Technology Research Center (CaSToRC) of The Cyprus Institute has become part of the recently funded European Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Exascale Computing “Research on AI- and Simulation-Based Engineering at Exascale” (RAISE), funded under the H2020-INFRAEDI-2018-2020 call. The CoE will advance the use of high performance computing (HPC) capabilities for the upcoming exascale computers in engineering applications.

 

The Cyprus Institute joins the highly competitive RAISE consortium which comprises of the Juelich and Barcelona supercomputing centres in Germany and Spain, respectively, hosting some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), as well as leading industrial and academic partners across Europe, from Iceland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Latvia.

 

RAISE will be a driver of excellence in novel methodologies which intertwine Artificial Intelligence (AI) and HPC, and an enabler for the advancement of European complex applications involving big data workflows for academia and industry. The RAISE CoE will be user-driven and inherently committed to co-design activities to ensure that future HPC architectures are well suited for the applications and their users (both from academia and industry). The CoE will federate existing resources around Europe, exploiting available competences, and ensuring multi-disciplinarity (combining application domain and HPC systems, software and algorithm expertise) and synergies with national/regional programmes.

 

The RAISE CoE will address a broad spectrum of complex problems in science and engineering, ranging from aeronautics and turbine design, to remote sensing, additive manufacturing and sound engineering, by using cutting-edge European simulation codes and contributing to open source community codes. CaSToRC will employ physics-informed machine and deep learning algorithms in computational fluid dynamics, in an effort to understand the behaviour of liquids on surfaces, with applications in the optimization of surface features for facilitating droplet transport for water harvesting, printing technologies and oil recovery, among others. In addition, CaSToRC, through its collaboration with the Delphi consortium of oil and gas companies, will work on the optimization of seismic imaging methodologies using AI, simulation and data assimilation approaches to enhance our ability to identify subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs.

 

Promoting the uptake of HPC and AI approaches is also an integral part of the CoE’s vision. The participation of CaSToRC in the RAISE consortium complements its ongoing efforts to provide access to infrastructure and specialist knowledge through its training and graduate educational programs for Cyprus and the broader Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region. Importantly, the CoE’s vision is also in alignment with the recently established role of CaSToRC as the National High-Performance Computing Competence Centre under the EUROCC project and the aims of the prestigious SimEA ERA Chair project awarded to CaSToRC for spearheading research in computational engineering.

 

Through these EU- and government-funded initiatives, CaSToRC will be able to support its actions for reaching out to industrial, academic and government stakeholders for establishing new collaborations aiming towards facilitating the adoption of these technologies in their workflows.