A consortium of European partners, including Técnico, has been selected by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking to design and implement the first pan-European pilot Master’s programme in HPC. The consortium, which includes industrial partners and universities, will develop a Master’s Programme that it is expected to start in autumn 2022.
“This pilot project aims to develop and implement a two-year master’s programme at European level in the field of High Performance Computing”, explains the Técnico professor José Carlos Monteiro (Department of Computer Science and Engineering – DEI), who leads the project at Técnico. “It is intended that the curriculum has a modular structure, in order to allow student mobility between the different universities involved in the consortium”, stresses the Técnico professor.
With a total budget of 7 million euros, the project is led by the University of Luxembourg and includes a large group of European universities and research centres. 8 of these universities are “Awarding Universities”, that is, they will confer an academic degree. The other universities, including Técnico, are “Participating Universities”, i.e. they are involved in the design process. During the pilot implementation, there may be the possibility of professors from “Participating Universities” give classes at the Awarding Universities.
This project should result in a set of materials and recommendations based on the lessons learnt from implementation of this pilot programme, “with a view to open future calls for European Master’s programmes in this area”, stresses professor José Carlos Monteiro. The curriculum will have a modular structure, in order to make it easy to integrate all or some of the modules into new or existing Master’s programmes.
“High Performance Computing is becoming a strategic sector, not only in traditional areas such as scientific research and the military area, but also in the economy and in companies in general. The global great powers have substantially increased investments in HPC, which involves very large amounts”, highlights the Técnico professor. This investment will lead to an expanding need for HPC experts with knowledge in this highly specialised field, “who will be able to conveniently operate and use the supercomputers currently underway in Europe”, says professor José Carlos Monteiro.
“This project allows us to be at the forefront of this process, and therefore well positioned to present a proposal for future calls”, stresses professor José Carlos Monteiro.
