Telecommunication Systems Institute (TSI)
The Telecommunication Systems Institute (TSI) is a Research Institute founded by the Greek Ministry of Education in 1995. TSI operates under the auspices of the Technical University of Crete (TUC), as an administratively independent and financially self-sustained research entity that leads TUC’s R&D in the broad area of hardware systems and telecommunications. TSI has participated in many projects in the ESPRIT, ICT, ACTS, Telematics, and other programmes. TSI has also adopted a strategy of promoting the commercial exploitation of R&D results, by providing services (e.g. consulting) and contracting with industrial partners for specific products. The Technical University of Crete (TUC) is the youngest of the two technical universities in Greece (the older one is the National Technical University of Athens). The purpose of TUC is to offer advanced high-quality education and research in modern Engineering specialties. TUC has five departments. The Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering (ECE) has been accepting students since 1990. The department has a modern program of undergraduate and postgraduate studies aimed at educating engineers in current and emerging topics in computer engineering, telecommunications, electronics and systems. Since 1990, the department has been constantly growing and has now achieved a very good reputation for its research and teaching internationally. The MHL (Microprocessor and Hardware Laboratory), which is one of the laboratories of the ECE, and will be the mainly contributor to the COSSIM project, conducts research and development in the architecture and design of computer and communication systems, and in their implementation, at the IC, board, and system level. Staffed by 7 full-time researchers, 2 full-time engineers, 5 part-time researchers, and numerous research assistants and trainees, MHL includes an electronics lab, and has several UNIX workstations and PC’s running state-of-the-art ASIC, FPGA, PCB, and embedded software development tools. MHL and its members have performed 10 complex VLSI designs, 4 of which have been fabricated as chips; the largest one is a network processor consisting of more than 40 million transistors. In addition, 5 high-end commercial embedded systems were built, while TSI members have designed and implemented an open-source platform for automotive applications that has gained certain attention recently. More importantly TSI is/has been the technical manager in numerous EU-funded projects in the broad area of embedded and HPC systems (i.e. OSMOSIS, SMART, SAFEMETAL, FASTCUDA, HERMES, COSSIM, ECOSCALE, EXTRA) focusing either on multi-processor systems or sophisticated design tools for embedded systems while this group has participated in more than 15 multi-national projects in the last 8 years.
Cyberbotics Sàrl
Cyberbotics Sàrl was founded in 1998 as a spin-off company from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). It is located in Lausanne, Switzerland and currently employs 6 highly qualified specialists (4 men and 2 women). Cyberbotics develops the Webots open source robot simulation software.
Webots was a commercial product until December 2018; from this date it has been open source and released under the Apache 2.0 license. Cyberbotics participates in several European Projects (Human Brain Project, OpenDR, ROSIN, RobMoSys), in a Swiss project (Sinergia) and also provides industrial companies (BHP, KHG, Perrone Robotics, Renault, INTRA group, etc) with consulting services. Cyberbotics aims at becoming the world leader in the open source robot simulation field.
Fraunhofer
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung is Europe’s largest organization for application oriented research. Founded in 1949, the organization undertakes applied research that drives economic development and serves the wider benefit of society. Its services are solicited by customers and partners in industry, the service sector and public administration.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Mathematics ITWM in Kaiserslautern, Germany, focuses on mathematical approaches to practical challenges like optimization and visualization. With computer simulations being an indispensable tool in the design and optimization of products and production processes, real models are being replaced by virtual models and mathematics play a fundamental role in the creation of this virtual world. Core competences of the Fraunhofer ITWM include processing of large data sets, drafting of mathematical models, problem-solving in numerical algorithms, summarization of data sets, interactive optimization of solutions, and visualization of simulation and sensor data.
In the OPTIMA project there will be two distinct groups of Fraunhofer ITWM that will participate, the Competence Center for High-Performance Computing (CC-HPC) and the Department of Transport Processes (TV), with distinct roles; CC-HPC will be a technology provider, while TV an application developer with their software MESHFREE.
EXAPSYS
EXAPSYS (EXAscale Performance SYStems) plc is a start-up company affiliated to FORTH, TSI and Synelixis Solutions SA, focusing purely on HPC systems and applications. The HPC and Embedded Systems group of Synelixis has moved to EXAPSYS, as well as researchers from TSI and FORTH. Moreover, all the Synelixis IP from the HEAP, FASTER, COSSIM, EXTRA, ECOSCALE and EuroEXA EU projects, among others, has been transferred to EXAPSYS; similarly, EXAPSYS uses and exploits the results of FORTH from the ExaNeSt, ExaNoDe, and EuroEXA projects. The aim of EXAPSYS is to develop highly parallel
innovative heterogeneous systems, utilizing FPGAs as well as other accelerators (e.g. AI accelerators), as well as novel HPC applications meeting real industrial needs. The EXAPSYS core research and development team has extensive experience in developing a) Novel homogeneous and heterogeneous Parallel Systems, b) Efficient FPGA-based accelerators, c) Innovative Simulators for highly parallel heterogeneous systems.
Based on this vast experience EXAPSYS targets to:
- improve the performance and energy of next-generation supercomputers by prototyping, simulating and evaluating heterogeneous architectures and network topologies
- develop efficient HPC applications incorporating its novel Deep and Recurrent Learning tools and methodologies and taking full advantage of the capabilities of the next generation HPC systems.
- Exploit the research results from two Institutions and one high-tech company in the area heterogeneous Cloud and HPC system.
Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS)
The Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS) is a non-profit Academic Research Body established in 1989 by the Ministry of Education in order to carry research and development activities in the fields of telecommunications and computer systems. ICCS is associated with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). The personnel of ICCS consists of a number of Research scientists and more than 500 Associate Scientists (including PhD students). ICCS is very active in European co-funded research activities and has been the project coordinator of many EU projects in various programs. ICCS will participate in this project through the Computing Systems Laboratory (CSLab).
CSLab (cslab.ece.ntua.gr) is one of the largest research laboratories of the Computer Science Department of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of NTUA, and possesses strong expertise in computer architecture and large scale parallel (HPC) and distributed systems (Big Data, Cloud and P2P infrastructures). Its members have performed research and development both at the higher level of algorithmic design and applications’ optimization as well as in the assembly and operation of such systems with a tradition spanning more than three decades in the implementation, optimization and operation of systems at all scales.
CSLab has been heavily involved in the implementation of several National and International Research projects on HPC, Cloud computing, Big Data, applications, etc. The lab has 3 faculty members, 6 experienced senior research associates, and over 15 graduate students pursuing their PhD, with an academic record of more than 300 research publications in relevant fields in international journals and conferences. The key members of CSLab that will be involved in this project also possess extensive experience in Computer Architecture, FPGA and reconfigurable design, and custom, high-performance accelerators.
M3E
M3E is the acronym for Mathematical Methods and Models for Engineering. The company is a spinoff of the University of Padua that focuses on developing numerical modelling and algorithms for solving challenging problems in several engineering sectors. M3E combines strong competence in mathematics and computer science with extensive knowledge in engineering and provides support and consultancy to top engineering firms.
M3E specializes in the development of software for the numerical discretization of partial differential equations, linear algebra, trials scheduling, optimization, data analysis, High Performance Computing and Machine Learning for several engineering applications. In addition to software, M3E also offers consulting services in particular for surface and underground environmental processes, management of water resources, transport and diffusion of contaminants in freshwater aquifers, exploitation of oil and gas reservoirs, subsidence and its possible mitigation, air pollution diffusion, simulation of industrial process. M3E is the ideal partner to develop unique models and algorithms to solve the most challenging problems.
Maxeler IoT
Maxeler Technologies provides complete platforms for High Performance Computing applications based on their reconfigurable multiscale dataflow supercomputing technology. Maxeler dataflow computing systems combine conventional CPUs and high-performance Dataflow Engines (DFEs) based on high-end FPGA devices. Maxeler dataflow computers have been used to deliver 20-50x improvements in performance/W and performance/space with respect to conventional systems across a range of application domains. Maxeler has delivered its solutions to clients in many different fields including oil & gas exploration, financial risk analytics and trading, security, government, medicine and scientific computing.
Maxeler provides MaxCompiler, a complete high-level development environment for application development on Maxeler’s DFEs and other FPGA based platforms such as Amazon EC2 F1 and Xilinx Alveo. MaxCompiler provides a rich feature set for application development, optimisation, simulation and debug.
Maxeler IoT-Labs is a new division of Maxeler Technologies. Based in Delft, NL, it focuses on applying Maxeler’s dataflow technology to edge-of-IoT applications. It also pursues a wider R&D agenda of exploring novel application areas and collaborative research. Maxeler has an established track record of research and development. Through its university program, the company also has research relationships with over 150 universities around the world.
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) – a member of the Helmholtz Association – is one of the largest research centres in Europe. It pursues cutting-edge interdisciplinary research addressing the challenges facing society in the fields of health, energy and the environment, and information technologies. Within Forschungszentrum, Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) operates tremendously parallel supercomputers of the highest performance class. JSC furthermore pursues an ambitious research program that includes research on future HPC system architectures to enable scientists and engineers to solve their highly complex problems. Currently, about 250 experts are working at JSC across all the domains of supercomputing and simulation science. JSC operates Tier-0 and Tier-1 computer systems that are accessible also to European researchers at large. To further advance the capabilities of these computer systems and improve on energy efficiency, JSC works on the development of novel computer architectures. Furthermore, powerful systems for data storage and processing are available. At the time being, JSC operates, for instance, the supercomputer JUWELS Booster which is currently ranked at position seven on the Top500 and three on the Green500 lists.
EnginSoft
EnginSoft is one of the leading European technology transfer companies in the field of Simulation Based Engineering Science (SBES). Since its foundation in 1984, EnginSoft has a continuing global presence and has always been at the forefront of technological innovation. The company offers a rare combination of specific and advanced skills in all disciplines in which simulation technologies are used, deep knowledge of statistical approaches, scientific computing, simulation process and data management (SPDM) knowledge, and experience in assisting customers to safely and effectively navigate, exploit and manage the vast and complex data and information obtained both from SBES applications and from direct physical testing.
Appentra
Appentra is a Deep Tech software startup company incorporated in 2012 with headquarters in A Coruña,
Spain. It is a privately held company with world-wide rights to commercialize products and services based on the novel Parallelware technology conceived and developed in Europe leveraging the results of 10+ years of research at the University of A Coruña, and more recently the results of H2020 projects, particularly FETHPC MAESTRO and EPEEC and SME Instrument Phase 1. The startup has lighthouse customers in the US, Saudi Arabia and Europe.
Appentra is specialized in high-precision real-time static analysis of the source code of application software with focus on parallelization for multicore CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs. Parallelware is a breakthrough disruptive technology that goes beyond the state-of-the-art in static code analysis, being faster, more precise and enabling the analysis of sequential and parallel code.
