# Council Regulation (EU) 2018/1488 of 28 September 2018 establishing the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, Introduction: Introductory text

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

Council Regulation (EU) 2018/1488
of 28 September 2018
establishing the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 187 and the first paragraph of Article 188 thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,
Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament,
Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee,
Whereas
(1)
Public-private partnerships in the form of Joint Technology Initiatives were initially provided for in Decision No 1982/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.
(2)
Regulation (EU) No 1291/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishes Horizon 2020 – The Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020), ‘Horizon 2020’. It aims to achieve a greater impact with respect to research and innovation by combining Horizon 2020 and private sector funds in public-private partnerships in areas where the scope and scale of the resources in research and innovation are justified to the Union's wider competitiveness goals, leverage private investment and help tackle societal challenges in a limited number of cases with a clear European added-value. Those partnerships should be based on a long-term commitment, including a balanced contribution from all partners, be accountable for the achievement of their objectives and be aligned with the Union's strategic goals relating to research, development and innovation. The governance and functioning of those partnerships should be open, transparent, effective, efficient and inclusive, by giving the opportunity to a wide range of stakeholders active in their specific areas to participate.
(3)
In accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1290/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Council Decision 2013/743/EU, support may be provided to joint undertakings established in the framework of Horizon 2020 under the conditions specified in that Decision.
(4)
Regulation (EU) No 1316/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council established the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). CEF should enable projects of common interest to be prepared and implemented within the framework of the trans-European networks policy in the sectors of transport, telecommunications and energy. In particular, CEF should support the implementation of those projects of common interest which aim at the development and construction of new infrastructures and services, or at the upgrading of existing infrastructures and services, in the transport, telecommunications and energy sectors. CEF should contribute to supporting projects with a European added value and significant societal benefits which do not receive adequate financing from the market.
(5)
Regulation (EU) No 283/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council established the guidelines for trans-European networks in the area of telecommunications infrastructure and laid down the sector specific conditions for the telecommunications sector.
(6)
High Performance Computing qualifies as a project of common interest in the area of digital service infrastructures identified to be eligible for funding subject to Article 6(1) of Regulation (EU) No 283/2014, namely access to re-usable public sector information, as referred to in point 3(d) of the Annex to that Regulation. In accordance with Article 6(3) of Regulation (EU) No 1316/2013, the Commission may entrust part of the implementation of the CEF to the bodies referred to in point (c) of Article 62(1) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
(7)
The Communication from the Commission entitled ‘Europe 2020 — A Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ (the ‘Europe 2020 strategy’), endorsed by the European Parliament and by the Council, emphasises the need to develop favourable conditions for investment in knowledge and innovation so as to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in the Union.
(8)
The Communication from the Commission of 19 April 2016 entitled ‘European Cloud Initiative – building a competitive data and knowledge economy in Europe’ calls for the establishment of a European data infrastructure based on leading-class High Performance Computing capabilities and the development of a full European High Performance Computing ecosystem capable of developing new European technology and realise exascale supercomputers. The importance of the area and the challenges faced by the stakeholders in the Union require action in order to gather the necessary resources and capabilities, including the existing ones such as, for example, national supercomputers and supercomputing centres, to close the chain from research and development to the delivery and operation of the exascale High Performance Computing systems. Therefore, a mechanism should be set up at Union level to combine and concentrate the provision of support to the establishment of a world-class European High Performance Computing infrastructure and for research and innovation in High Performance Computing by Member States, the Union and the private sector. This infrastructure should provide access to the public sector users, users from industry, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and users from academia, including the scientific communities of the emerging European Open Science Cloud.
(9)
The Communication from the Commission of 10 May 2017 on the Mid-Term Review on the implementation of the Digital Single Market Strategy — A Connected Digital Single Market for All, identifies High Performance Computing as a critical element for the digitisation of industry and the data economy. Substantial investments are needed to develop, acquire and operate supercomputers that rank among the top three in the world and no single European country has the resources to develop a full High Performance Computing ecosystem alone. There is, therefore, a need for the Member States, the Union and the private sector to coordinate their efforts and share their resources in order to meet the increasing demand for High Performance Computing and to build up a strong and innovative High Performance Computing science and industry ecosystem across the Union. The Communication proposes the creation of a legal instrument that provides a procurement framework for an integrated exascale supercomputing and data infrastructure.
(10)
In order to equip the Union with the computing performance needed to maintain its research at a leading edge, the Member States investment in High Performance Computing should be coordinated and the industrial and market take-up of High Performance Computing technology be reinforced both in the public and private sectors. The Union should increase its effectiveness in turning the technology developments into demand-oriented and application-driven European High Performance Computing systems that are competitive in the marketplace, establishing an effective link between technology supply, co-design with users, and a joint procurement of world-class systems, and creating a globally competitive ecosystem in High Performance Computing technologies and applications. At the same time, the Union should provide an opportunity for its supply industry to leverage on such investments, leading to their uptake in large-scale and emerging application fields such as personalised medicine, connected and automated driving or other lead markets that are underpinned by artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies, edge computing or more broadly by the digitisation of Union industry.
(11)
A Joint Undertaking represents the best instrument capable to implement the goals of the European High Performance Computing Strategy as set out in the European Cloud Initiative, to overcome the present limitations, while offering the highest economic, societal, and environmental impact and best safeguarding the Union's interests. It can pool resources from the Union, the Member States and the private sector. It can implement a procurement framework and operate world-class High Performance Computing systems via promotion of technology, particularly if it is a competitive European one. It can launch research and innovation programmes for developing European technologies and their subsequent integration in exascale supercomputing systems and contribute to developing a competitive European technology supply industry.
(12)
The Joint Undertaking should be set up and start operating at the latest by early 2019 to reach the target of equipping the Union with a pre-exascale infrastructure by 2020, and to develop the necessary technologies and applications for reaching exascale capabilities around 2022 to 2023, while promoting a competitive European High Performance Computing innovation ecosystem. Since a development cycle of the next generation of technology typically takes four to five years, to stay competitive on the global market, the actions to reach the exascale target have to start as soon as possible.
(13)
The public-private partnership in the form of the Joint Undertaking should combine the financial and technical means that are essential to master the complexity of the ever escalating pace of innovation in this area. Therefore, the members of the Joint Undertaking should be the Union, Member States and countries associated to Horizon 2020 agreeing on a joint European initiative in High Performance Computing, and associations representing their constituent entities and other organisations with an explicit and active engagement to produce research and innovation results and keep the know-how in the field of High Performance Computing in Europe. The Joint Undertaking should be open to new members.
(14)
The Union, the Participating States and the Private Members of the Joint Undertaking should each provide a financial contribution to the administrative costs of the Joint Undertaking. Under the multiannual financial framework for the years 2014-2020, a contribution to the administrative costs by the Union can be frontloaded to cover the running costs only up to 2023. The Participating States and the Private Members of the Joint Undertaking should fully cover the administrative costs of the Joint Undertaking as of 2024.
(15)
With a view to regaining a leading position in High Performance Computing technologies, and develop a full High Performance Computing ecosystem for the Union, the industrial and research stakeholders in the European Technology Platform for High Performance Computing (ETP4HPC) private Association have established a contractual Public Private Partnership with the Union in 2014. Its mission is to build a European world-class High Performance Computing technology value chain that should be globally competitive, fostering synergies between the three main components of the High Performance Computing ecosystem, namely technology development, applications and supercomputing infrastructure. Considering its expertise, and its role in bringing together the relevant private stakeholders in High Performance Computing, the ETP4HPC private Association should be eligible for membership in the Joint Undertaking.
(16)
With a view to strengthening the data value chain, enhancing community building around data and setting the grounds for a thriving data-driven economy in the Union, the industrial and research stakeholders in the Big Data Value Association (BDVA) have established in 2014 a contractual public private partnership with the Union. Considering its expertise and its role in bringing together the relevant private stakeholders of big data, BDVA should be eligible for membership in the Joint Undertaking.
(17)
The private associations ETP4HPC and BDVA have expressed, in writing, their willingness to contribute to the Joint Undertaking's technological strategy and bring their expertise into the realisation of the objectives of the Joint Undertaking. It is appropriate that the private associations accept the Statutes set out in the Annex to this Regulation by means of a letter of endorsement.
(18)
The not-for-profit Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) association has 25 member countries whose representative organisations create a pan-European supercomputing infrastructure, providing access to computing and data management resources and services for large-scale scientific and engineering applications at the highest performance level. The Joint Undertaking may cooperate with PRACE for providing and managing access to a federated and interconnected supercomputing and data infrastructure and its services, as well as for training facilities and skills development opportunities.
(19)
The GÉANT network interconnects 38 national research and education network partners delivering a pan-European network for scientific excellence, research, education and innovation. Through its integrated catalogue of connectivity, collaboration and identity services, GÉANT provides users with highly reliable, unconstrained access to computing, analysis, storage, applications and other resources, to ensure that Europe remains at the forefront of research. The Joint Undertaking may cooperate with the GEANT network for the connectivity between the supercomputers of the Joint Undertaking, as well as with other European supercomputing and data infrastructures.
(20)
The Joint Undertaking should address clearly defined topics that would enable academia and European industries at large to design, develop and use the most innovative technologies in High Performance Computing, and to establish an integrated networked infrastructure across the Union with world-class High Performance Computing capability, high-speed connectivity and leading-edge applications and data and software services for its scientists and for other lead users from industry, including SMEs and the public sector. The Joint Undertaking should make efforts to reduce the specific High Performance Computing-related skills gap across the Union by engaging in awareness raising measures and assisting in the building of new knowledge and human capital.
(21)
The Joint Undertaking should lay the ground for a longer-term vision and prepare the path towards building the first hybrid High Performance Computing infrastructure in Europe, integrating classical computing architectures with quantum computing devices, e.g. exploiting the quantum computer as an accelerator of High Performance Computing threads. Structured and coordinated financial support at European level is necessary to help research teams and European industries remain at the leading edge in a highly competitive international context by producing world-class results to ensure the fast and broad industrial exploitation of European research and technology across the Union generating important spill-overs for society, to share risk-taking and joining of forces by aligning strategies and investments towards a common European interest.
(22)
In order to achieve its objectives to design, develop and use the most innovative technologies in High Performance Computing, the Joint Undertaking should provide financial support in particular in the form of grants and procurement following open and competitive calls for proposals and calls for tenders based on annual work plans. Such financial support should be targeted in particular at proven market failures that prevent the development of the programme concerned, and should have an incentive effect in that it changes the behaviour of the recipient.
(23)
In order to achieve its objectives to increase the innovation potential of industry, and in particular of SMEs, contribute to reducing the specific High Performance Computing related skills gap, support the increase of knowledge and human capital and upraise High Performance Computing capabilities, the Joint Undertaking should support the creation, and in particular the networking and coordination of national High Performance Computing competence centres across the Union. These competence centres should provide High Performance Computing services to industry, academia and public administrations on their demand. They should primarily promote and enable access to the High Performance Computing innovation ecosystem, facilitate access to the supercomputers, address the significant shortages in skilled technical experts by undertaking awareness raising, training and outreach activities, and embark on networking activities with stakeholders and other competence centres to foster wider innovations, for example by exchanging and promoting best practice use cases or application experiences, by sharing their training facilities and experiences, by facilitating the co-development and exchange of parallel codes, or by supporting the sharing of innovative applications and tools for public and private users, in particular SMEs.
(24)
The Joint Undertaking should provide a demand-oriented and user-driven framework and enable a co-design approach for the acquisition of an integrated, world-class, exascale supercomputing and data infrastructure in the Union, in order to equip users with the strategic computation resource they need to remain competitive and solve societal, environmental, economic and security challenges. For this purpose, the Joint Undertaking should contribute to the acquisition of pre-exascale and petascale supercomputers. The supercomputers of the Joint Undertaking should be installed in a Participating State that is a Member State.
(25)
Horizon 2020 should contribute to the closing of the research and innovation divide within the Union by promoting synergies with the European Structural and Investments Funds (ESIF). Therefore the Joint Undertaking should seek to develop close interactions with the ESIF, which can specifically help to strengthen local, regional and national research and innovation capabilities.
(26)
The Joint Undertaking should provide a favourable framework for Participating States that are Member States to use their ESIF for the acquisition of supercomputers. The use of ESIF in the Joint Undertaking activities is essential for developing in the Union an integrated and networked world-class High Performance Computing and data infrastructure, since the benefits for such infrastructure extend well beyond the users of the Member States. If Participatings States decide to use ESIF for contributing to the acquisition costs of the petascale and the pre-exascale supercomputers, the Joint Undertaking should take into consideration the Union's share of ESIF of this Participating State, while accounting only the national ESIF share as national contribution to the budget of the Joint Undertaking. In any case, the Union's contribution from Horizon 2020 and CEF funds should cover up to 50 % of the acquisition costs plus up to 50 % of the operating costs of the pre-exascale supercomputers, to align with the Joint Undertaking's objective to contribute to the pooling of resources for equipping the Union with world-class pre-exascale supercomputers. In the case of petascale supercomputers, the Union's contribution from Horizon 2020 and CEF funds would cover up to 35 % of the acquisition costs of the supercomputer, to align with the existing funding for innovation procurement in Horizon 2020. The remaining costs of the petascale supercomputers and the pre-exascale supercomputers should be covered by the Participating States.
(27)
The Joint Undertaking should be the owner of the pre-exascale supercomputers it has acquired. The operation of each pre-exascale supercomputer should be entrusted to a hosting entity. The hosting entity may represent a single Participating State that is a Member State or a hosting consortium. The hosting entity should be in position to provide an accurate estimate and to verify the operating costs of the supercomputer, by ensuring, for example, the functional separation, and to the extent possible, the physical separation of the Joint Undertaking pre-exascale supercomputers and any national or regional computing systems it operates. The hosting entity should be selected by the Governing Board of the Joint Undertaking (‘Governing Board’) following a call for expression of interest evaluated by independent experts. Once a hosting entity is selected, the Participating State where the hosting entity is established or the hosting Consortium should be able to decide to call for other Participating States to join and contribute to the funding of the pre-exascale supercomputer to be installed in the selected hosting entity. The share of the Union's access time to the pre-exascale supercomputer should be directly proportional to the financial contribution of the Union made from Horizon 2020 and CEF funds to the total cost of ownership of that supercomputer and should not exceed 50 % of the total access time of that supercomputer. The contributions of the Participating States in a hosting Consortium to the pre-exascale supercomputer should be translated into shares of access time to that supercomputer. The Participating States should agree among themselves the distribution of their share of access time to the pre-exascale supercomputer. The Joint Undertaking should remain the owner of the pre-exascale supercomputers until they are depreciated.
Then ownership could be transferred to the hosting entity for decommissioning, disposal or any other use. If it is so agreed, where the ownership is transferred to the hosting entity before the full depreciation period of a pre-exascale supercomputer or because the Joint Undertaking is being wound up, the hosting entity should reimburse the Joint Undertaking the residual value of the supercomputer.
(28)
The Joint Undertaking should jointly with Participating States procure the petascale supercomputers. The operation of each petascale supercomputer should be entrusted to a hosting entity. The hosting entity may represent a single Participating State that is a Member State or a hosting consortium of Participating States. The Joint Undertaking should own the part that corresponds to the Union's share of financial contribution to the acquisition costs from Horizon 2020 and CEF funds. The hosting entity should be selected by the Governing Board following a call for expression of interest evaluated by independent experts. The share of the Union's access time to each petascale supercomputer should be directly proportional to the financial contribution of the Union from Horizon 2020 and CEF funds to the acquisition costs of that petascale supercomputer. The Joint Undertaking should transfer its ownership to the hosting entity after the full depreciation of operation of the petascale supercomputer or when it is being wound up. In the latter case, the hosting entity should reimburse the Joint Undertaking the residual value of the supercomputer.
(29)
The design and operation of the pre-exascale and petascale supercomputers supported by the Joint Undertaking should take into consideration energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.
(30)
To be able to address the ever growing demand of users to supercomputing resources, the Participating States may provide to the Joint Undertaking access time to one or more of their national supercomputers which is available, namely that has not already been committed and which is not co-funded by the Joint Undertaking. In this case, Participating States should provide to the Joint Undertaking on a voluntary basis a reasonable share of access time to national supercomputers having an acceptable performance level, in order for the Joint Undertaking to be able to address the user demand. Such provision of access time to a national supercomputer should not be accounted as financial or in-kind contribution of the Participating State to the Joint Undertaking.
(31)
The use of the pre-exascale and petascale supercomputers should be primarily for public research and innovation purposes, for any user from academia, industry or the public sector. User allocation of access time to the supercomputers should primarily be based on open calls for expression of interest launched by the Joint Undertaking and evaluated by independent experts. Upon decision by the Governing Board, it should be possible to grant a small percentage of access time without a call for expression of interest in some exceptional cases such as strategic European initiatives or in emergency and crisis management situations. The Joint Undertaking should be allowed to carry out some limited economic activities for commercial purposes. Access should be granted to users established in the Union or a country associated to Horizon 2020. The access rights should be equitable to any user and allocated in a transparent manner. The Governing Board should define and monitor the access rights to the Union's share of access time for each supercomputer.
(32)
The supercomputers of the Joint Undertaking should be operated and used in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679, Directive 2002/58/EC and Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
(33)
Limited use of the supercomputers by users carrying out economic activities for non-research civilian applications should be allowed. Access time should be primarily granted to any user established in the Union or a country associated to Horizon 2020. The access rights should be allocated in a transparent manner.
(34)
The Joint Undertaking governance should be assured by two bodies: a Governing Board, and an Industrial and Scientific Advisory Board. The Governing Board should be composed of representatives of the Union and Participating States. The Governing Board should be responsible for strategic policy making and funding decisions related to the activities of the Joint Undertaking, in particular for all the public procurement activities. The Industrial and Scientific Advisory Board should include representatives of academia and industry as users and technology suppliers. It should provide independent advice to the Governing Board on the strategic research and innovation agenda and on the acquisition and operation of the supercomputers owned by the Joint Undertaking.
(35)
For the general administrative tasks of the Joint Undertaking, the voting rights of the Participating States should be distributed equally among them. For the tasks corresponding to the setting up of the part of the work plan related to the acquisition of the supercomputers, the selection of the hosting entity and the research and innovation activities of the Joint Undertaking, the voting rights of the Participating States that are Member States should be based on the principle of qualified majority. The Participating States that are countries associated to Horizon 2020 should also hold voting rights for the tasks corresponding to the research and innovation activities. For the tasks corresponding to the acquisition and operation of the supercomputers, only those Participating States and the Union that contribute resources to the procurement of petascale supercomputers and the total cost of ownership of pre-exascale supercomputers should have voting rights proportional to their contribution.
(36)
The Union's financial contribution should be managed in accordance with the principle of sound financial management and with the relevant rules on indirect management set out in Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046. Rules applicable for the Joint Undertaking to enter into public procurement procedures are to be set in its financial rules.
(37)
To foster an innovative and competitive European High Performance Computing ecosystem, the Joint Undertaking should make appropriate use of the procurement and grant instruments, including joint procurement, pre-commercial procurement and public procurement of innovative solutions.
(38)
In assessing the overall impact of the Joint Undertaking, investments from the Private Members should be taken into account, as in-kind contributions consisting of the costs incurred by them in implementing actions, less the contributions by the Joint Undertaking.
(39)
In order to maintain a level playing field for all undertakings active in the internal market, funding from the Union Framework Programmes should be compatible with State aid principles so as to ensure the effectiveness of public spending and prevent market distortions such as crowding-out of private funding, the creation of ineffective market structures or the preservation of inefficient firms.
(40)
Participation in indirect actions funded by the Joint Undertaking should comply with Regulation (EU) No 1290/2013. The Joint Undertaking should, moreover, ensure the consistent application of those rules based on relevant measures adopted by the Commission. In order to ensure appropriate co-financing of indirect actions by the Participating States, in compliance with Regulation (EU) No 1290/2013, the Participating States should aim at contributing an amount at least equal to the reimbursement provided by the Joint Undertaking for the eligible costs incurred by beneficiaries in the actions. To this effect, the maximum funding rates set out in the annual work plan of the Joint Undertaking in accordance with Article 28 of Regulation (EU) No 1290/2013 should be fixed accordingly.
(41)
Provision of financial support to activities from CEF should comply with rules of CEF.
(42)
The financial interests of the Union and of the other members of the Joint Undertaking should be protected by proportionate measures throughout the expenditure cycle, including the prevention, detection and investigation of irregularities, the recovery of lost, wrongly paid or incorrectly used funds and, where appropriate, the application of administrative and financial penalties in accordance with Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046.
(43)
The Joint Undertaking should operate in an open and transparent way providing all relevant information in a timely manner as well as promoting its activities, including information and dissemination activities, to the wider public. The rules of procedure of the bodies of the Joint Undertaking should be made publicly available.
(44)
For the purpose of simplification, the administrative burden should be reduced for all parties. Double audits and disproportionate amounts of documentation and reporting should be avoided. For actions funded from Horizon 2020, audits of recipients of Union funds under this Regulation should be carried out in compliance with Regulation (EU) No 1291/2013. For actions funded from CEF, audits of recipients of Union funds under this Regulation should be carried out in compliance with Regulation (EU) No 1316/2013.
(45)
The Commission's internal auditor should exercise the same powers over the Joint Undertaking as those exercised in respect of the Commission.
(46)
The Commission, the Joint Undertaking, the Court of Auditors and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) should get access to all necessary information and the premises to conduct audits and investigations on the grants, contracts and agreements signed by the Joint Undertaking.
(47)
All calls for proposals and all calls for tender under this Regulation should take into account the duration of Horizon 2020 and CEF, as appropriate, except in duly justified cases.
(48)
The Joint Undertaking should also use the electronic means managed by the Commission to ensure openness, transparency and facilitate participation. Therefore, the calls for proposals launched by the Joint Undertaking under Horizon 2020 should also be published on the single portal for participants, as well as through other Horizon 2020 electronic means of dissemination managed by the Commission. Moreover, relevant data on, inter alia, proposals, applicants, grants and participants should be made available by the Joint Undertaking for inclusion in Horizon 2020 reporting and dissemination electronic systems managed by the Commission, in an appropriate format and with the periodicity corresponding to the Commission's reporting obligations.
(49)
An interim and a final evaluation of the Joint Undertaking should be conducted by the Commission with the assistance of independent experts. In a spirit of transparency, the relevant independent experts' report should be made publicly available, in compliance with the applicable rules.
(50)
Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely the strengthening of research and innovation capabilities, the acquisition of petascale and pre-exascale supercomputers, and access to High Performance Computing and data infrastructure across the Union by means of a Joint Undertaking, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, but can rather, by reason of avoiding unnecessary duplication, retaining critical mass and ensuring that public financing is used in an optimal way, be better achieved at the Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2018/1488/introduction (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-regulation-2018-1488/introduction
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.