Fortissimo has launched the cloud-based Fortissimo Marketplace today, a new platform to simplify access to high-end simulation services helping companies improve productivity and reduce costs.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can struggle to take advantage of high-performance computer simulations and modelling, due to its intrinsic complexity and price.
As a tailor-made, self-service platform, the Fortissimo Marketplace aims to overcome those barriers by providing on-demand access to hardware, software and the necessary expertise to run advanced simulations.
At launch, Fortissimo already has almost 140 partners, including manufacturing companies; application developers; domain experts; IT solution providers, and High-Performance Computing (HPC) cloud service providers, from 19 countries.
About The Fortissimo project
Fortissimo is a pair of projects funded by the European Commission which aim to strengthen the competitiveness of European businesses on a global market.
Therefore, Fortissimo provides companies with a free and easy cloud-based access to computationally intensive digital simulations. The possibilities resulting from this approach start with the more precise design of complex workpieces, through the acceleration of time-to-market, to the cost saving of materials.
In the Fortissimo marketplace, businesses find permanent and cost-effective access to expertise and technology on a pre-pay or pay-per-use basis.
Using simulation and modelling on HPC systems is widely seen as an effective, but very expensive design and development tool, only accessible to the largest and most financially powerful companies.
The supercomputers and software required to run large scale highly sophisticated simulations, plus the expertise of skilled professionals to handle the simulation tasks, require substantial capital investments. This means, the initial cost for setup and operation can be too high for potential adopters.
The Fortissimo Marketplace reportedly takes the complexity out of the process of procuring high performance simulation and modelling, and markedly reduces costs.
Through either turn-key packages or Fortissimo’s matching service, manufacturing SMEs can gain cost-effective access to advanced simulation and modelling services operating on a cloud infrastructure of HPC resources coupled to software applications, expertise, and tools.
The Fortissimo project has conducted more than 50 experiments within the pilot phase of Fortissimo Marketplace. As a result of its Fortissimo experiment, supercar manufacturer, Koeinsegg, recouped its investment in HPC experimentation with Fortissimo in less than three months. Corresponding to a 1.5% reduction in overall development costs of its new Koenigsegg One:1 supercar.
In the second stage of the Fortissimo project, which was initiated in November 2015, more than 30 experiments have been started. Successfully concluded experiments become case studies, which are made available to other users through the Fortissimo Marketplace to inspire evaluation of high performance computer simulations.
Today’s experiments cover subjects as diverse as improving energy efficiency; the aerodynamics of light aircraft; CO2 emissions prediction for automotive engines; low-pressure die-casting, and cabling routing architecture optimisation.
