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The GANANA project officially kicked off in Stockholm with a two-day symposium held on May 6–7. The event brought together research partners from Europe and India, alongside representatives from the European Commission, the Government of India, and the Swedish Research Council (VR), marking the beginning of a promising scientific alliance.

The EU–India partnership for High-Performance Computing takes its name from an old Sanskrit word “ganana”, meaning “to count”—a reference that perfectly reflects the project’s core. GANANA aims to harness HPC to address pressing global challenges in three key areas: life sciences, geophysical hazards, and weather & climate.

Rossen Apostolov, Project Director from KTH, explained during the first symposium that GANANA is composed of two twin consortia, strongly coupled and fully aligned with each other: “a European consortium and an Indian consortium. The European consortium includes leading HPC centers and research institutes, and within GANANA we have three of Europe’s most powerful HPC systems—LUMI in Finland, Leonardo in Italy, and MareNostrum in Spain.”

He highlighted the project’s main objective: “to foster the development of advanced HPC technologies and software applications in support of scientific research.” Equally important, however, is the exchange of expertise through the Mobility and Exchange Programme, which enables researchers from both regions to spend extended visits at partner institutions, sharing ideas, experiences, and knowledge.

This cross-cutting activity is led by CSC – IT Center for Science, which coordinates expertise exchange and resource allocation within the project. Marie Sandberg from CSC described the initiative as “an exchange programme where European researchers can visit their counterpart organizations in India, and Indian researchers can come to Europe for extended visits. CSC is also in charge of organising scientific workshops and high-level symposia.”

She emphasized the broader ambition: “Through GANANA, both Europe and India will not only advance science and HPC, but also increase expertise, develop more skilled people, and generate impacts that benefit societies and economies on both continents.”

Climate modelling emerged as one of the key priorities of GANANA, particularly for India.

Manoj Khare, Indian Project Coordinator from C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) – an institution operating under India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology – highlighted during the symposium: “India and the EU are both facing the consequences of climate change, and we need to prepare scenarios and plans to tackle this problem in the future.”

Weather & Climate is one of the three main pillars around which the project is built, alongside Life Sciences and Geophysical Hazards.

On the Life Sciences side, Alexandre Bonvin from Utrecht University explained their work to improve two key software tools, Gromacs and Haddock, crucial for drug discovery and structural biology, both in terms of performance and application domains. The pillar will also develop new tools to better model interactions between biomolecules.

Turning to Geophysical Hazards, Upasana Dutta from C-DAC presented their research focus during the symposium: “We are going to look at three natural hazards: forest fires, tsunamis and floods and the third one is earthquake-induced landslides. One of the key areas will be early warning systems and the societal consequences of floods. We will also build synergies between European and Indian researchers to predict forest fire spread and smoke, and to develop shake maps for earthquakes to better anticipate landslides.”

These activities form the foundation for building a framework of long-term cooperation in scientific HPC, driving bilateral innovation and research, and promoting the sharing of tools, expertise, and resources.

As highlighted by Linda Gesenhues, Programme Manager at the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and GANANA’s project officer: “We expect from the GANANA project that we will see concrete outcomes and the co-development of software applications across different fields. But equally important, we look forward to an overarching strengthening of collaboration between researchers in the EU and India, working together for a sustainable future.”

This first event in Stockholm will be followed by two more high-level symposia and several scientific workshops, all sharing the same ambition: to create impact not only through advanced software applications and skills development, but also by contributing to solutions for some of the grand global challenges of our time. That is why a cross-border collaboration like GANANA is so crucial.

To dive deeper into the symposium highlights and explore more about the project, visit our YouTube channel and watch the video Highlights from the Launch Symposium or you can explore our media gallery to view photos and watch video interviews with the partners.