site.btaEurope Has Unique Opportunity to Be World Leader in Introducing AI in Industry, Says European Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva

Europe has a unique opportunity to be a world leader in the introduction and application of AI in industry, said European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation Ekaterina Zaharieva on Wednesday.

She stressed that Europe has a powerful scientific potential and assured that the EU will continue to develop the environment for its researchers through better infrastructure, better living and working conditions, and easier mobility. Zaharieva was speaking at an event to mark the successful completion of the project to upgrade Bulgaria's Discoverer petascale supercomputer, part of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking. The event was held at Sofia Tech Park, where the supercomputer is located. 

She emphasised that the event marks an important milestone for digital leadership in Europe and that Bulgaria is among the leading countries of this transformation, which is something to be proud of. Zaharieva described the Discoverer as one of the world's best examples of the benefits of European cooperation in research and innovation. She noted that supercomputers are essential for most scientific fields and industries that make Europe competitive with the strongest economies, from discovering new life-saving medicines to designing safer airplanes and more sustainable cars.

"The Discoverer has been a powerful tool for researchers since its launch in 2021, but today we are taking it to the next level," she said, adding that the Bulgarian supercomputer will now be faster and capable of performing more complex tasks and that this upgrade will also pave the way for the Bulgarian AI factory.

Deputy Prime Minister and Innovation and Growth Minister Tomislav Donchev said that he visited Sofia Tech Park in 2021, when the Discoverer was installed. He noted that during that time he thought that the supercomputer would be outdated in a few years time, but that time has proved him wrong, as today he finds the Discoverer in better condition, more powerful and smarter. Donchev pointed out that the availability of such technical and human capacities, as well as the field of AI as a whole, are among the factors which will determine the competitiveness of Bulgaria's economy in the coming years.

The project to upgrade Discoverer is part of a European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) process, as it is the first supercomputer in the EU network to be upgraded since its creation in 2021. The upgrade of the supercomputer is part of the EuroHPC JU's mission to create a world-leading supercomputing infrastructure in Europe.