DARE

The Digital Autonomy with RISC-V in Europe, Special Grant Agreement 1 ( DARE ) project aims to boost European digital transformation by developing novel computing and AI technologies. It is a groundbreaking initiative driving Europe’s independence in high-performance computing and AI. The project is leveraging open-source technologies, such as RISC-V (an open standard instruction set architecture used to develop custom processors for a variety of applications, from embedded designs to supercomputers), to develop high-performance chiplet processors. These are the essential building blocks for next-generation supercomputers. This effort is a critical first phase in a long-term plan to ensure secure, efficient, and scalable computing solutions tailored to European needs.

The DARE project is a direct response to Europe’s strategic need for digital sovereignty, ensuring that the continent has full control over its critical computing infrastructure. Europe has long been dependent on non-European hardware and software solutions for its supercomputing infrastructure. This reliance poses risks to security, economic stability, and technological competitiveness.

The project will start by designing and developing one processor and two accelerators based on the RISC-V architecture:

• a vector accelerator (VEC) for high-precision high-performance computing (HPC) and emerging applications in the HPC-AI convergence domain,
• an AI Processing Unit (AIPU) designed for AI inference acceleration in HPC applications, and
• a general-purpose processor (GPP) optimised for HPC workloads in European supercomputers.

KTH/PDC is participating in DARE and is working on bringing the GROMACS code for molecular dynamics modelling to the VEC accelerator and, in the process, furthering the development of the SYCL compiler/runtimes for this platform. This will not only improve the performance of GROMACS on the new hardware but will also contribute the expertise of the GROMACS team in both performance and portability to the development of the hardware and software stack for the VEC accelerator. This work is being done in collaboration with BSC, Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), CSC – IT Center for Science (Finland), and Tampere University (Finland).

In total, DARE has 38 partners from 13 countries across Europe, including universities and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and is coordinated by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Spain.

More information about DARE is available in this press release about the project launch . For further information about PDC’s activities in relation to DARE, contact: