SHAPE (SME HPC Adoption Programme in Europe) is a pan-European programme supported by PRACE. The Programme aims to raise awareness and provide European SMEs with the expertise necessary to take advantage of the innovation possibilities created by High-Performance Computing (HPC), thus increasing their competitiveness. The programme allows SMEs to benefit from the expertise and knowledge developed within the top-class PRACE research infrastructure.
Advances in simulation on HPC systems creates new business opportunities. Today, the innovation capabilities of many businesses depend on HPC-supported prototyping, modelling and processing. However, SMEs often lack the knowledge and resources to fully take advantage of these possibilities.
SHAPE will help European SMEs overcome those barriers. It will equip SMEs with knowledge on advanced design technologies in order to enable the development of new products and services, reduce time-to-market and cost of R&D or increase the service quality. It will foster technological transfer between academia (i.e. PRACE) and industry and facilitate the definition of a workable solution based on HPC and of an appropriate business model.
SHAPE Pilot is a trial programme launched to prove the viability and value of the Programme. Its objective is to refine the details of the initiative and prepare its launch in a fully operational form.
The Pilot aims to work with a few selected SMEs and introduce HPC-based tools and techniques into their business, operational, or production environment. It is open to all European SMEs that have an interesting idea that can be implemented using HPC. The selected solutions should bring a potential tangible Return on Investment to their business. Following an open selection process based on business and technical criteria, the project work will involve the following:
- Defining an appropriate HPC model for the selected solution;
- Assessing the solution’s business and technical viability;
- Possibility of using PRACE’s resources in order to test the solution (through PRACE Preparatory Access in an open R&D model).
PRACE experts will work with the selected SMEs in order to develop their solutions, providing the participating SMEs with knowledge that will allow them to make an informed decision on the selected HPC solution. In addition also the consideration of independent service providers for the implementation in a later stage is planned.
Application: The Call for Applications to the SHAPE Pilot opened on 17 June 2013 with a closing date of 15 September 2013.
The final decision will be communicated by PRACE to the successful applicants by mid-October 2013.
This article was first published on www.prace-ri.eu on Thursday 25 July 2013.
