At a time when the availability of cloud computing technologies is accelerating, this secure, unified and scalable system, available from 2024, meets the requirements of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). It will then be extended to also cover quantum computing.
This model-as-a-service for HPC, AI and quantum computing in the cloud will provide access to one of the largest portfolios of computing services and supercomputers, encouraging and enabling the democratization of advanced computing by simplifying the use of public and private data centers.
For the first time, this project will help to ensure a continuum between open research, confidential research and industrial activities. It also aims to federate academic and industrial sovereign infrastructures, as well as "Expertise as a Service" and "Learning as a Service" value-added services (support, commercial expertise, training, technology monitoring).
The first partners to make their computing resources available are French public organizations GENCI, CNRS-IDRIS and Inria, as well as OVHcloud and Qarnot for the private sector.
CLUSSTER will also provide access to resources and services available in France and Europe, thanks to the convergence of European initiatives on sovereign cloud platforms such as GAIA-X and EOSC (European Open Science Cloud).
The CLUSSTER portal will be based on Eviden's "JARVICE™ XE HPC Enterprise Software" solution, which offers a set of flexible and secure HPC-as-a-service solutions. It will be complemented by additional services (vertical business services and/or horizontal technology services) provided by ActiveEon, as well as tools for measuring energy consumption and carbon impact on all infrastructures available in the CLUSSTER federation in order to report on the footprint of the operations carried out.
Thanks to the expertise of the various players in the consortium, the CLUSSTER project will provide specific software environments via business verticals, including geospatial (CS Group), climate (CEA), risk calculation and 3D rendering (Qarnot) and digital simulation. With additional funding from the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, this cluster will be completed by extensions, such as in artificial intelligence with the processing of large linguistic models (LLM), or digital health, as well as in other areas of the geosciences in partnership with the GaiaData national infrastructure.
High value-added services will also be made available for training as a service and technology monitoring as a service (MesoNet project, GENCI Technology Watch Unit and Grid'5000/SLICES-FR).
"This initiative is perfectly in line with Eviden's strategy, and we are honored to be able to be part of it alongside our various partners. The hybridization of technologies and the development of computing capabilities as a service are a priority for the Group in order to make these technologies more accessible to our customers and to foster innovation and research in academia and industry. "
Emmanuel Le Roux, Executive Vice President, Global HPC, AI and Quantum at Eviden, Atos Group
"A continuum of access to high-performance digital simulation resources and artificial intelligence technologies is a fundamental requirement for research and the development of knowledge and technologies. The joint public-private proposal presented by CLUSSTER comes at a time of very strong growth in demand. Its potential to open up the quantum field already demonstrates a spirit of anticipation of the future."
Philippe Lavocat, CEO of GENCI
[1] Sovereign Unified Cloud of Services, Technologies and Infrastructures (Cloud Unifié Souverain de Services, de Technologies et d'Infrastructures)
To find out more and read the full press release, click here: