The plan for the EU presented by the Commission seeks to reverse its relative decline in High-Performance Computing (HPC) use and capabilities. Thus, the EU will double its investment in HPC and become home to computers that can perform 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (i.e. 1018) operations per second before 2020. Half of the investment would be for development and training and for new centres of excellence, creating thousands of jobs.

The European Commission presented the plan to reverse the EU relative decline in High Performance Computing (HPC) use and capabilities. High Performance Computing (HPC) is critical for industries that rely on precision and speed, such as automotive and aviation, and the health sector. According to the Commission, access to rapid simulations carried out by ever-improving super computers can be the difference between life and death, between new jobs and profits or bankruptcy.

The Commission's plan intends strengthen HPC in Europe by strengthening PRACE as the leading pan-European HPC e-infrastructure, pooling national and EU funds to service academic and industrial research, as in the online platform OpenAIRE; creating a workforce adequately trained in HPC; stimulating the market for HPC in Europe by supporting more acquisitions of HPC systems and services and faster uptake of HPC by industry and SMEs; encouraging Member States to jointly procure leading edge HPC systems in order to share costs; establishing centres of excellence for software in scientific fields like energy, life-sciences and climate; supporting the HPC Industry and research to maintain an independent and state-of-the-art EU supply chain through research and innovation funding and pre-commercial procurement; and working to ensure that the EU HPC industry has fair access to global markets.

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President responsible for the Digital Agenda, stressed that High Performance Computing is a crucial enabler for European industry and for more jobs in Europe. Under this plan the EU will double its investment in HPC (from €630 million to €1.2 billion) and become home to computers that can perform 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (i.e. 1018) operations per second ("exa-scale"), before 2020.