Taking place close to the oldest European university, University of Bologna (founded in 1088), the 4th PRACE Industrial Seminar demonstrated how High-Performance Computing (HPC) can enhance European industrial competitiveness by enhancing its innovation capabilities.
The Bologna seminar continued the success of the previous Industry Seminars held in Amsterdam in 2008, in Toulouse in 2009 and in Stockholm 2011. To date, the seminars have attracted nearly 300 attendees from 22 various countries and representing 94 companies.
During two half-days in the heart of the medieval city of Bologna, the event provided answers to two questions:
- How successful applications of HPC technologies in various industries can help achieve industrial leadership in either innovation or large-scale data modeling
- How PRACE, as the pan-European HPC research infrastructure, can help European industry apply novel HPC-based solutions by providing access to PRACE resources and knowledge

Speakers included specialists from leading innovative European companies, HPC experts from academia, as well as representatives of PRACE and the European Commission.
A special emphasis was placed on how PRACE can facilitate effective use and development of HPC in Europe with strong focus on the acquisition of HPC expertise by European industry. The seminar endeavoured to identify and eliminate barriers to accessing PRACE’s expertise by SMEs.
In particular, this event provided an opportunity to present the new industrial offer of PRACE. The offer is designed for large companies as well as SMEs to foster the acquisition of HPC expertise and allow such European companies with substantial R&D activity in Europe to access PRACE HPC resources within the existing PRACE peer-review process based on scientific excellence.
Presentations of Seminar
The following following presentations were given at the seminar:
- Welcome
- Presentation of Award for the Most Innovative European HPC Application, Richard Kenway
- Industrial Advisory Committee PRACE 3rd Implementation Phase, Cinzia Zannoni
- Progress in software enabling, Paul Graham
- Dutch HPC Cloud, Axel Berg
- Prototypes, Torsten Wilde
- Hands-on: cluster automation with AWS, Christian Mezzanotte
- Technology Watch, Jonathan Follows
- Virtual Tour – The process of implementing HPC in a business environment, Erik Lönroth
- Barriers to the introduction of simulation methods and HPC Technologies in SMEs, Stefano Odorizzi
- Success Stories from Another Region: Korean Grand Plan for Industrial Supercomputing, Sang Min Lee
- Deltares Success Story, Bert Jagers
- Wrap-up – From Academia to Industry, Thomas Boenisch
- HPC-PME and Danielson Engineering, Nicolas Mignerey
- Petroleum GeoServices, Mark Westwood
- High Performance computing in Financial Risk management, Claudio Tebaldi
- Supercomputing Scotland, Mark Parsons
- Scania Success Story, Erik Lönroth
- Dompe Success Story, Andrea Beccari
- ENI Success Story, Sergio Zazzera
- PRACE Industrial Pilot Projects: CENAERO, Koen Hillewaert
- ETP4HPC – European Technology Platform, Jean-François Lavignon, Hugo Falter, Giampietro Tecchiolli
- PRACE Open R&D Model, Maria Ramalho
- PRACE and Industry, Thomas Lippert
- HPC Driving Innovation, Thomas Reibe
- Aster, Paolo Bonaretti
- Announcement of Next Seminar, Thomas Boenisch