ERC funds ETH Zurich projects on supercomputing and droplets

The European Research Council has announced funding for two ETH Zurich-linked Synergy Grants projects, one on accelerating supercomputing with AI methods and one on the chemistry of very small water droplets.

• The supercomputing project involves ETH Zurich, EPFL, and the University of Manchester; it will develop new mathematical methods and software using mixed precision and randomized methods to speed up scientific simulations, with expected gains of around 10x faster and 3 to 5 times lower energy consumption.
• The project has 4 partner teams and 10 million euros in total funding, of which 2.5 million euros goes to ETH Zurich; Torsten Hoefler represents ETH Zurich and is also Chief Architect for AI at CSCS.
• The droplets project is led by Ruth Signorell and includes CNRS, DESY, and the University of Bristol; over 6 years it will study freely suspended water droplets and their surrounding air to understand their unusual chemical behavior.
• The droplets project has 14 million euros in total funding, with 4.9 million euros allocated to ETH Zurich; the article says the research could help with virus transmission, climate models, and chemical manufacturing.