The European Union is to receive new supercomputers for one billion euros. On Thursday, the EU Commission presented a plan to build an infrastructure of supercomputers. This should be able to perform at least one trillion (10 to the power of 18) computing operations per second by 2023 at the latest. To bridge the gap until then, the plan envisages the purchase of two somewhat slower supercomputers.

The new supercomputers would be able to process huge amounts of data in real time. According to the Brussels authority, this could make the electricity and water supply more efficient or improve the prediction of hurricanes, earthquakes and climate change. In the field of medicine, supercomputers are already helping to make faster diagnoses and simulate the effects of new drugs.

According to the EU Commission, EU countries are currently far too dependent on the computing power of supercomputers located outside the EU in countries such as China, Switzerland, the USA or Japan. This "lack of independence" poses a threat to business secrets, data protection and the strong right to privacy in Europe, the authority explained.

In this context, EU Vice-President Andrus Ansip pointed out that not a single one of the ten best supercomputers in the world is currently located in an EU country. "The EU must catch up in this tough race," he demanded. Supercomputers are the "engine of the digital economy".

The new European supercomputer system is to be financed with 486 million euros from the EU budget and an approximately equal amount from the national budgets of European countries. Further project funding could come from the private sector.

"A better European supercomputer infrastructure (...) is of central importance for the digitalization of industry and increasing the competitiveness of the European economy," explained Digital Commissioner Mariya Gabriel. According to experts, the use of supercomputers can, for example, shorten the usual product cycles in the automotive industry from an average of 60 to 24 months.

In the latest list of the fastest supercomputers ("Top 500"), China was the clear leader. The country ranked 202 systems there, while the USA, the leader until recently, only had 143. China also operates the fastest computer in the world. With 93 petaflops (quadrillions of calculations per second), 'Sunway' works at the national supercomputing center in Wuxi, China, keeping its rivals well behind. China is also in second place with 'Tianhe-2' (33.9 petaflops). In third place is 'Piz Daint' (19.6 petaflops), a facility from Switzerland. The planned European infrastructure would surpass the current number one with 1 exaflops.