The Ganana project unites European Union and Indian efforts in scientific High-Performance Computing (HPC). With Europe’s advanced HPC infrastructure and India’s rapidly growing capabilities, this partnership is essential to tackling critical societal issues and driving scientific progress.
The project brings together leading scientists, technologists, and High-Performance Computing Centers from Europe and India to share HPC resources and infrastructure. The initiative fosters extensive expertise exchange, facilitates mobility programs, and develops a framework and roadmap for long-term collaboration.
GANANA is structured around three priority domains that highlight the key scientific fields where HPC is crucial for research and innovation: life sciences, geographical hazards, and weather & climate. Expert institutions for each domain are involved in expertise exchange, capacity building activities and resource sharing.
HPC enables advanced biomolecular modelling and simulations essential for drug and protein design. These techniques, powered by exascale computing, support research across pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and other biotech industries.
The pillar focuses on three main initiatives using two key software tools, GROMACS and HADDOCK. The first objective is to enhance molecular dynamics simulation with GROMACS, improving performance with new GPU algorithms and ensuring better portability across HPC systems. Machine learning is also being tested to enhance complex simulations. Then, on advancing integrative modeling with HADDOCK, expanding AI models for protein interactions and making the software more accessible for Indian HPC systems. And last, within the pillar there are developing AI and 3D modeling workflows to create hybrid AI models to predict immune-relevant peptides.
GeoHazards involve complex, large-scale simulations that require HPC to manage multi-physics processes across space and time. Supercomputing enables improved early warning systems, short-term forecasts, and urgent computing services for disaster preparedness.
The pillar focuses on earthquakes, tsunamis, and wildfires, using high-performance computing, AI, and urgent simulation tools to provide faster warnings, more accurate forecasts, and enhanced resilience for at-risk communities. Work currently centers on integrating computational tools and datasets to create a comprehensive framework for managing natural hazards, turning advanced science into practical disaster preparedness solutions.
Key areas of work include:
Earthquake Monitoring and Urgent Computing
Platforms are being developed to generate rapid ground-shaking maps and AI-powered systems for near-real-time earthquake detection, enabling timely and reliable information for decision-making during emergencies.
Tsunami Forecasting
Urgent computing systems simulate tsunami propagation and potential impacts, producing high-resolution inundation maps and exploring past and synthetic scenarios to support preparedness.
Wildfire Prediction
Models for wildfire spread and smoke plumes are being enhanced to provide operational forecasts, with collaborative workshops and training ensuring long-term, sustainable use.
Climate modelling relies heavily on HPC to run high-resolution Earth System Models (ESMs) and assess the impacts of global warming. Continued development of algorithms, workflows, and community codes is essential to fully exploit advanced architectures and support science, policy, and industry needs.
The pillar focuses on improving the performance and compatibility of climate and weather models across European and Indian high-performance computing (HPC) systems. The initiative aims to accelerate climate simulations, enhance computational efficiency, and strengthen technical collaboration between regions. A key goal is to improve the performance of Indian climate and weather applications on powerful computers, ensuring simulations run faster and more efficiently, saving both time and resources.
Another objective is to make European and Indian Earth system models compatible with each other’s computing infrastructures, allowing both regions to access state-of-the-art tools for climate simulation.
The pillar also works on simulating the future climate of Indian cities, such as Pune, using high-resolution models with a 2 km scale. These simulations support better planning for heatwaves, flooding, and other urban climate impacts.
Finally, new benchmarks are being developed to test supercomputers with real-world climate models, ensuring they are optimized for scientific applications and accessible to both European and Indian research communities.