A computational fluid dynamics simulation which can be used to predict flows of fluid or air
A computational fluid dynamics simulation which can be used to predict flows of fluid or air

H2020 backs advanced computing project

The UK’s University of St Andrews has secured €3.5m grant from Horizon 2020 focused on effective software development for emerging ‘parallel’ computer platforms.

The ‘Refactoring Parallel Heterogeneous Resource-Aware Applications – a Software Engineering Approach’ (RePhrase) project aims to tackle the issue that is seen as one of the most pressing problems in computer science. The venture brings together eight leading academic and industry partners from the UK, Austria, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Israel, including IBM. It is hoped that benefits can also be realised in increased performance along with reduced cost and energy usage.

Speaking about the venture, project leader Professor Kevin Hammond said: “We will be able to study fundamental issues in software engineering for parallel programming and apply them to real-world problems. The potential academic and commercial impact of this work is immense.”

It is anticipated that future computers will consist of thousands or even millions of processors, which poses a real problem to traditional programmers. The complexity of such systems will mean that powerful tools are needed to develop software that runs stably and efficiently while making the most of the ability to process in parallel. Progress in this area is expected to enable ‘green computing’ as well as powering the next generation of software and major industry applications.

The research and innovation action project runs for three years until 2018.