The agreement is key to the success of the FCAS programme and envisages the promotion of new supercomputing infrastructures.
The sum of all the available scientific-technical capacities is essential to compete globally and reinforce Spanish and European technological sovereignty.
Indra and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) have signed a cooperation agreement to boost research and development in dual-use technologies that reinforce Spanish and European technological sovereignty. Indra's president, Marc Murtra, and BSC's director, Mateo Valero, signed the agreement on Monday 14 October at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
Both entities have expressed their interest in collaborating in the development of solutions and knowledge related to supercomputing, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, areas of dual application, both in the civil and defence sectors, and of special relevance for the NGWS/FCAS programme, the initiative promoted by Germany, Spain and France for the development of the air defence systems of the future.
The protocol between Indra and BSC will facilitate the exchange of scientific and technical knowledge, the training of personnel and the search for synergies and collaborations in other strategic dual technology programmes. It will also contribute to the implementation of new supercomputing, software and hardware infrastructures, providing the necessary processing capacity to address increasingly complex scientific and technological challenges.
Marc Murtra, CEO of Indra, said: ‘The collaboration of the industrial and scientific ecosystem will allow leading the large technological programmes that are being launched in Europe. The joint application of the capabilities of the BSC and Indra will contribute significantly to the development of dual-use technologies needed to ensure the well-being of our society. This alliance represents an important step forward towards strategic autonomy by reinforcing our ability to anticipate the future.
For BSC director Mateo Valero, ‘conceptual designs and developments of engineering systems are increasingly complex and require the use of appropriate digital tools and extraordinary computing power. The primary objective of this agreement is to establish a ‘system of systems’ approach within the innovation ecosystem, which will contribute to improving the technological sovereignty of the future Spanish and European technological and industrial base’.
The agreement establishes a continuous communication channel and sets the basis for BSC and Indra to work together. The possible areas of collaboration are very broad and of enormous technological depth, covering, for example, simulation, modelling and emulation of complex systems in virtual environments, research and development of AI applications, hardware architectures, edge computing, orchestration systems in high-performance and distributed environments and quantum computing.