The new National Research Center in High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing is born. Proposed by INFN-Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, the new centre sees participation of 51 founding members coming from public and private sectors. The governing bodies of the ICSC Foundation took office on 19 July. They have the task of managing the Centre, which is one of the five Centres envisaged by the PNRR National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
With a funding of almost 320 million euros, the initiative aims to create the largest Italian system dedicated to high-performance computing, big data management and quantum computing.
SISSA will actively tale part in the project. In particular, the School will participate in two of the thematic areas of the National Center. The first is in the fields of materials physics, of which it is co-leader together with the CNR. The second is in astrophysics and cosmology. In all, about twenty professors will be involved in the two fields, coordinated by Stefano Baroni and Matteo Viel, respectively, who will be joined by young researchers and PhD students who will be enrolled to complete the scientific program of the center.
The new National Center will be based on the Bologna Technopole with the aim of building a distributed and transversal infrastructure to support scientific research and the production world for the innovation and digitization of the country.
To carry out its mission, ICSC will count on a massive funding from Next Generation EU funds under the Education and Research Mission of the PNRR coordinated by the MUR Ministry of University and Research. In particular, over 100 million euros will be dedicated to staff, an investment that is considered a priority, and with almost 16 million euros reserved for doctoral scholarships and therefore for higher education and the career of young people.