Next Phase of Human Brain Project Launched

The Human Brain Project (HBP) has entered into its next and final phase, which will last another three years until March 2023. Launched in 2013 as one of the first two EU-funded “FET Flagship” projects, the central goal of the HBP in this last phase will be to consolidate and further integrate the developed platforms into a coherent and sustainable research infrastructure for neuroscience and brain-inspired technology development. This digital research infrastructure, called EBRAINS, will provide researchers with tools and services for storing, processing, analysing, and sharing data, for navigating the brain in 3D brain atlases, for running closed-loop AI and robotics workflows, and for creating and simulating models of the brain.

The JSC leads the EBRAINS Computing Services work package, which operates and integrates the HPC/Cloud computing and storage services of the Fenix Infrastructure (including the JSC’s new JUSUF system) with novel neuromorphic computing services. This joint infrastructure layer forms the basis of EBRAINS and enables platforms such as the Neurorobotics Platform and individual “vertical” solutions to integrate different EBRAINS services within complex workflows. Through its SimLab Neuroscience, the JSC also plays a key role in the further development and integration of the neuroscience simulation engines Arbor, NEST, and The Virtual Brain, as well as their coupling for the co-simulation of multiscale brain models, within the EBRAINS Modelling Services work package. The JSC is also engaged in the support of EBRAINS users through the HBP’s High-Level Support Team, and in efforts to ensure that EBRAINS will be continued as a sustainable European research infrastructure even beyond the end of the HBP.

Contact: Dr. Boris Orth, b.orth@fz-juelich.de

from JSC News No. 273, 24 June 2020

Last Modified: 05.07.2022