HPC spin-off support

Following EXDCI-findings through dialog with HPC centres, large companies, SMEs and startups, EXDCI-2 aims to conduct a pilot action that will address the transition gap between the results of a HPC R&I project and a (successful) market product.

What is a spin-off project?

This Spin-off initiative (SPI) starts within the lifetime of an R&I project and survives its end. The spin-off would gather a subset of the project partners strongly engaged in the economic assessment – and potentially later on – the productization and commercialization of a high potential technical R&I outcome. The spin off thus benefits from already established partnerships within the active project consortium and engages via the spin-off into a market focused assessment for a co-development effort. The expected outcome is a business plan for potential products derived from the gem. The Spin off gathers all necessary stakeholders for a first step in assessing the potential of the gem in a market driven process.

To assert the validity and potential of such Spin off initiatives (SPI), we conduct a Proof-of-Concept, based on gems identified within H2020 funded: FET HPC and CoEs projects.

From the proposal received via this open call (open from July 14th 2019 till September 17th 2019), the propels BigDFT4CHEM was selected awarded up to 65 000 € for a business-oriented assessment of its gem. The project started in March 2020 and will run till end of August 2020.

BigDFT4CHEM selected as pilot project

Small chemical molecule The aim of BigDFT4CHEM is to study the market and commercialization possibilities of the open source code BigDFT applied to the chemical industry, and to contribute to closing the gap between the scientific “gem” and its commercial application. The objective of the awarded SPI initiative is threefold:

  • to better understand the applicability of BigDFT in an industrial context and assess its market potential;
  • to define the strategy to make BigDFT a product and include it into Nextmol's platform; and
  • to elaborate a business plan for the commercialization of BigDFT.

BigDFT is a Density Functional Theory code for the simulation of materials at atomistic level developed by several European research institutions and a flagship code of the H2020 “MAterials design at the eXascale” Centre of Excellence in materials modelling, simulations and design (MaX CoE). 

The BigDFT4CHEM consortium, formed by Nextmol (coordinator), CEA Grenoble, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), unites the scientific knowledge and know-how of the software structure (CEA) with expertise in HPC and massively parallel computing (BSC) and the capacity to commercialize the product (Nextmol).

Image: Copyright Nextmol: Small chemical molecule