Strengthening Big Data Value PPP and HPC PPP collaboration
Following on from the joint position paper recently approved by BDVA (Big Data Value Association and ETP4HPC (European Technology Platform for High-Performance Computing), BDVA had an important participation at the last EXDCI’s (European Extreme Data & Computing Initiative) workshop in Barcelona. The objective of the workshop was to coordinate the development and implementation of a common strategy for the European HPC Ecosystem.
BDVA member of Board of Directors Jim Kenneally (Intel) gave a keynote presenting an overview of the Big Data Value association and Big data Value PPP followed by a discussion on potential further collaboration opportunities.
Some big data use cases were also presented by a number of BDVA members in a session aiming to initiate dialogue about the areas where HPC capabilities may assist big data analytics. In particular the following cases were presented and discussed:
- "Forestry, Fishery and Agriculture – The DataBio Lighthouse” by Caj Södergård, (VTT Finland, BDVA Director)
- “Early warning systems” by Davide Storelli (Engineering, BDVA member) presented the case
- “Autonomous cars” by Jim Kenneally (Intel, BDVA Director)
- High quality dynamically adaptable Machine Translation (Natural language processing) by Jan Hajič Charles University)
- “Smart Orchestration for Performance Aware Big Data processing” by Victor
- Bayon-Molino (Intel)
- “Uncovering the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmia” by Xing Cai (Simula)
BDVA also attended ETP4HPC’s recent steering committee where Jim Kenneally led discussions in further concrete collaboration opportunities
Arising from BDVA’s attendance at both events, a number of concrete deliverables were agreed including an update on ETP4HPC’s SRIA (highlighting complementary areas between both communities), and discussion of a HPDA instantiation in upcoming Extreme-Scale Demonstrator (EsDs) call – at BDVA’s forthcoming Summit in Valencia (Nov 30 – Dec 2)

Image 1, ETP4HPC Steering Committee & Jim Kenneally

Image 2 – L-to-R
- Jim Kenneally, BDVA Interlock with ETP4HPC
- Michael Malms, ETP4HPC project manager
- Jean-François Lavignon, Chairman, ETP4HPC
- Gustav Kalbe, Head of the High Performance Computing & Quantum Technologies Unit at the European Commission (EC)