Intel has announced an investment of several million euros. As part of Intel Labs Europe (900 researchers in 19 laboratories) that the giant Santa Clara began a new adventure. Many French agencies join to provide a financial effort similar to that of Intel. The CEA, University of Versailles and GENCI (Grand National Equipment Intensive Computing) form with the depth ExaScale Computing Research Center. The objective of this research center is to invent technologies that will deploy machines capable of providing higher power to exaflop (1000 petaflop, by comparison, the fastest supercomputer in the world reached 1.75 petaflop).

The investment is spread over three years and future laboratory should employ a dozen people to run. The research will not only theoretical, since experiments in several specific areas (energy, seismology, fluid dynamics and health) will be conducted. In the latest TOP500 list of the United States was far ahead in terms of numbers of systems. In Europe, Britain dominated the rankings, followed by France and Germany (second tie).

However, CEA has been several times in the top of the standings with its machines to simulate nuclear detonations. Our country is a haven for the logical center of the monster computing of tomorrow. Steve Ballmer, Intel Senior Fellow and support new architectures giant Santa Clara said that "France has taken a key role in the pursuit of High Performance Computing in Europe" and that the company had chosen "because these three organizations that they had considerable expertise in software in this area.

In related news, Paul Otellini, was present at the mini-summit dedicated to Intel Capital, the investment subsidiary of the group he leads. There is an announcement rather disturbing. The recovery of the IT market, stronger than expected, could lead to a shortage of components during 2010. It will be recalled that at the heart of the crisis, manufacturers have greatly reduced their capacity to reduce their costs. A stronger recovery than expected could take short plants ... Stay tuned!