Sour syrup: Geopolitical relations between Canada and the United States are quickly weakening, and Europe could capitalize on this by deepening its partnership with the proud North American nation. However, the new partners will likely need big money to give the US-based HPC powerhouses a real edge.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently confirmed that Canada is joining the European network of supercomputers operated by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. Canada will become an active part of the public-private network of high performance computing (HPC) systems and, at least in theory, both sides should benefit from the agreement.
Von der Leyen said the new collaboration will give Canadian industry privileged access to Europe’s supercomputing resources, and startups and research organizations can also participate. Meanwhile, the European Union will be able to leverage Canada’s competitive technology industry to further expand the shared AI ecosystem.
The EuroHPC network includes 14 world-class supercomputers, 10 quantum computers and 19 “AI factories”. Its umbrella includes 67 research projects, 38 participating countries and 36 national competence centers. The total budget of EuroHPC is 8.2 billion euros. A further investment of 30 billion euros will create seven new AI data centers, with construction scheduled to begin next year.
Anton Leicht, an AI expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called collaboration between “middle powers” like Canada and the EU one of the most obvious near-term steps toward shared AI infrastructure. However, he cautioned that the new HPC-focused relationship is unlikely to have a practical impact on U.S. interests and dominance in the supercomputing business.
Leicht suggested that Washington will continue to have significant influence over both Canada and the EU as the US itself invests heavily in new HPC and AI data center capacity.
“As long as the U.S. is building gigawatt-scale clusters, no amount of collaboration that doesn’t lead to massive expansions will help,” said Leicht.
In any case, Canada is making significant efforts to become one of Europe’s most privileged partners. Prime Minister Mark Carney and von der Leyen recently launched an Alliance for the Future, giving “like-minded nations” a new way to tackle common problems.
Von der Leyen has decided to make Canada the EU’s first associate member, with shared HPC resources just one part of a larger initiative that is likely to anger the US government.
