India-EU sign 'Intent of Cooperation' on Climate Modeling, Quantum Tech

India and the European Union signed an "Intent of Cooperation on High-Performance Computing (HPC), Weather Extremes and Climate Modeling and Quantum Technologies" at a virtual ceremony in New Delhi on Monday.

During the virtual ceremony, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) of the Union government and the European Commission signed the Intent of Cooperation, aimed at establishing collaboration on HPC applications using Indian and European Supercomputers in the areas of Bio molecular medicines, Covid therapeutics, mitigating climate change, predicting natural disasters and Quantum Computing, read a statement released by the Delegation of the European Union to India and Bhutan.

The Intent of Cooperation builds further on the commitments made by both sides for deepening technological cooperation on Quantum and High-Performance Computing during the EU-India Leaders' meeting on May 8, 2021.

The signing of the agreement assumes significance in the context of the decision to set up the EU-India Trade and Technology Council (TTC) on April 25, 2022.

The statement quoted Alkesh Kumar Sharma, secretary, MeitY as saying, "HPC is tackling some of the biggest challenges in the world today. The demand for High-Performance Computing Systems is increasing rapidly in various application domains. Under this partnership, India and EU will leverage expertise from both sides to optimise HPC towards developing advanced technology solutions in multiple fields."

Roberto Viola, director general, DG CONNECT said, "I warmly welcome this cooperation with our Indian partners, which follows the announcement on establishing the EU-India Trade and Technology Council this spring. By combining our experience and expertise, and building on our long-standing cooperation and trust, we can help one another overcome the greatest challenges of our age: Covid-19 and climate change. Moreover, this agreement gives us an exciting perspective for the EU and India to explore the frontiers of Quantum Technologies jointly.