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. 2021 Nov 16;118(46):e2024891118.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2024891118.

Lessons learned from urgent computing in Europe: Tackling the COVID-19 pandemic

Núria López  1   2 , Luigi Del Debbio  1   3 , Marc Baaden  1   4 , Matej Praprotnik  5   6   7 , Laura Grigori  1   8 , Catarina Simões  1 , Serge Bogaerts  1 , Florian Berberich  1   9 , Thomas Lippert  1   9 , Janne Ignatius  1   10 , Philippe Lavocat  1   11 , Oriol Pineda  1   12 , Maria Grazia Giuffreda  1   13 , Sergi Girona  1   12 , Dieter Kranzlmüller  1   14 , Michael M Resch  1   15 , Gabriella Scipione  1   16 , Thomas Schulthess  1   13
Affiliations

Lessons learned from urgent computing in Europe: Tackling the COVID-19 pandemic

Núria López et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), an international not-for-profit association that brings together the five largest European supercomputing centers and involves 26 European countries, has allocated more than half a billion core hours to computer simulations to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside experiments, these simulations are a pillar of research to assess the risks of different scenarios and investigate mitigation strategies. While the world deals with the subsequent waves of the pandemic, we present a reflection on the use of urgent supercomputing for global societal challenges and crisis management.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; PRACE COVID-19 fast track; Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe; high-performance computing; urgent computing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Scheme of the workflow for applications to the PRACE Fast Track Call for Proposals to Mitigate the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Overview of 78 of the 80 projects submitted to the PRACE COVID-19 Fast Track Call. Two projects have been omitted as they are beyond the scope. The area of each circle is proportional to the total number of applications received in a given area, as inscribed in the center of the circle. The proportion of projects accepted is highlighted in darker color. The x axis represents the readiness for high-performance computing, while the y axis represents the scale of the objects targeted by each model. The scientific approach is indicated next to each circle: biostructural studies, docking and screening, fluid dynamics at the level of an organ or individual (airborne) transmission, and epidemiology at the global level.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
A statistical overview of the proposals submitted to the Fast Track Call. The map shows the distribution of proposals per country, with an inset of the number of submissions per week since the call was opened. A large number of European countries have participated in the Fast Track Call. The right part of the figure shows the distribution of proposals by sex, the distribution of proposals by career stage, and the number of reviewers per proposal. The number of reviewers subfigure both shows the number of reviewers (outside the circle), from zero to three, and the number of projects for each case (within the circle). In classifying the career stages we have used the categories normally used for the European Research Council (junior: 7 y after PhD; mid-career: 12 y after PhD; senior: more than 12 y after PhD).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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