HBP Successfully Enters Third Phase
The Human Brain Project (HBP) is one of the first two projects funded by the European Union's Future and Emerging Technologies flagship initiative. HBP is building a European research infrastructure (RI) for the neuroscience community with over one hundred partner institutions from more than 20 countries. It was launched in October 2013 and successfully entered its third project phase in April 2018.
The HBP RI is organized into six information and communication technology (ICT) platforms, which were first released in March 2016. They were significantly advanced in the second project phase, which successfully came to a close in March this year. The High Performance Analytics and Computing (HPAC) Platform plays a crucial role in the HBP RI by providing the basic data and computing infrastructure that enable scientists to store their data, integrate it into models and use it in simulations as well as analyse and visualize it. The HPAC Platform is being jointly built by BSC, Cineca, CSCS, JSC, and – starting with the third HBP phase – the TGCC at CEA as well as ten university partners under the coordination of JSC and CSCS. The five centres are also working closely together to develop the federated Fenix infrastructure, which receives funding through the recently started ICEI project.
The focus in the third project phase will be to unite the six ICT platforms together in a single platform, the HBP Joint Platform, and to establish the HBP High-Level Support Team. This will strengthen the HBP approach to supporting the development of complex, interactive workflows including modelling, simulation, and data analysis, which require the combined use of several of the individual platforms and their seamless integration to provide a user experience that allows a focus on problem solving rather than technical details. The HBP Joint Platform will build on the base infrastructure provided by Fenix and the community-specific interfaces developed by the HPAC Platform.
(Contact: Anna Lührs, a.luehrs@fz-juelich.de)
JSC News No. 257, 24 April 2018