PRACE

PRACE
Marco Abram, CSCS · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Name	PRACE
Type	Research infrastructure
Formation	2010
Headquarters	Brussels, Belgium
Region served	Europe

PRACE is a European research infrastructure that provides access to high performance computing resources and services for scientific communities across Europe. It supports computational research in fields ranging from astrophysics to bioinformatics by coordinating large-scale supercomputing resources and facilitating collaborations among national research centers, universities, and industry partners. PRACE enables projects requiring petascale and pre-exascale computing through resource allocation, technical support, and training initiatives.

Overview

PRACE coordinates access to Tier-0 supercomputing resources situated at major European centers such as CINECA, Jülich Research Centre, Genci, EPCC, and SURFsara. It connects user communities from institutions like Max Planck Society, CNRS, ETH Zurich, University of Cambridge, and Karolinska Institute to systems including installations from vendors such as IBM, Cray (now part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise), Fujitsu, Intel Corporation, and NVIDIA. PRACE provides peer-reviewed computational time allocations modeled after mechanisms used by facilities like European Southern Observatory, CERN, and Human Genome Project consortia. Its services complement national infrastructures such as ARCHER in the United Kingdom, HLRS in Germany, and RESSources initiatives in France.

History and Development

The establishment of PRACE traces to strategic European research policy dialogues involving stakeholders from European Commission, European Research Council, ESFRI, and national ministries. Early project phases engaged organizations including BSC, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SciNet, SARA, and NVIDIA Research to pilot distributed computational models inspired by efforts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and NERSC. PRACE evolved through successive funding frameworks tied to Horizon 2020 and earlier Framework Programme initiatives, paralleling developments at EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and responding to technology transitions driven by vendors such as AMD, ARM Holdings, and Google DeepMind. Milestones included the deployment of multi-petaflops systems, integration of GPU-accelerated architectures, and preparatory steps toward exascale computing in collaboration with centers like CEA and Forschungszentrum Jülich.

Governance and Funding

PRACE is governed through a consortium model involving national delegations from member states, represented by entities such as Cineca S.c.p.A., BSC-CNS, LRZ, and SURFsara BV. Oversight bodies mirror governance arrangements found in European Space Agency projects and employ peer review panels similar to those used by European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. Funding streams derive from national contributions, collaborative grants from Horizon Europe, and co-investments with national supercomputing centers like Rechenzentrum Garching and CSC – IT Center for Science. Strategic guidance has engaged stakeholders such as ESFRI and EuroHPC JU to align long-term capital procurement, procurement frameworks, and operational budgets.

Infrastructure and Services

PRACE operates a distributed infrastructure that integrates heterogeneous architectures including CPU-based clusters, GPU-accelerated nodes, and specialized interconnects from vendors like Mellanox Technologies and Intel Omni-Path. Facilities offer services similar to those at PRACE peer organizations: batch scheduling, high-throughput I/O, data management, and workflow orchestration, leveraging middleware and software stacks from projects such as OpenStack, Slurm Workload Manager, and HDF Group tools. User support encompasses scientific consultancy, code porting, performance engineering, and scalable data analytics, delivered via training programs inspired by Software Carpentry and partnerships with academic training centers at University of Oxford, Politecnico di Milano, and TU Delft. PRACE also provides repositories for benchmarks and testbeds compatible with initiatives like SPEC and Top500.

Research Impact and Applications

PRACE allocations have enabled landmark research across disciplines: climate modelling studies collaborating with ECMWF and Met Office; computational chemistry simulations tied to Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Laboratory of Molecular Biology; astrophysical simulations involving teams from European Southern Observatory and Université Paris-Saclay; and biomedical modeling in projects with European Molecular Biology Laboratory and Wellcome Trust funded groups. Work supported by PRACE informed policy and technical reports presented to bodies such as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and advanced applications in areas targeted by Horizon 2020 flagships. PRACE-facilitated projects often publish in journals like Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters, and The Lancet, demonstrating cross-disciplinary impact comparable to outputs from Large Hadron Collider collaborations.

Membership and Partnerships

Members consist of national computing organizations and research institutions such as CINECA, BSC, LRZ, GENCI, CSC, and SURF. Partnerships extend to industry and academic partners including Intel Corporation, AMD, NVIDIA, Cray, and research universities like Imperial College London, Heidelberg University, and Università di Bologna. PRACE collaborates with European initiatives such as EuroHPC, ESFRI, EUDAT, and international bodies like PRC-linked centers and bilateral programs with NSF-funded facilities. Membership models echo consortiums like European Grid Infrastructure and enable joint projects, shared procurement, and coordinated training across the European high-performance computing ecosystem.

Category:European research infrastructures