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As Europe continues to advance its digital transformation agenda, capacity building and technical training remain essential components for fostering innovation, research excellence, and industrial competitiveness. Within the CASTIEL 2 project, an analytical review of recent National Competence Centre (NCC) training activities conducted between January 2025 and March 2026 provides valuable insight into the evolving landscape of High-Performance Computing (HPC) and emerging digital technologies across Europe.
The analysis, based on 816 recorded training events, highlights a strong emphasis on practical and application-oriented learning. Interactive workshops and user trainings accounted for 62% of all activities, underlining the increasing demand for hands-on technical experience and applied digital competencies.
The findings reveal a broad and strategically aligned portfolio of training topics, including:
- HPC Fundamentals
- Parallel Programming and GPU Computing
- Software and Development Tools
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
- Large Language Models and Generative AI
- Quantum Computing
- High-Performance Data Analytics (HPDA)
The growing prominence of AI- and Generative AI-related activities reflects the accelerating interest in advanced data-driven technologies and their integration into scientific and industrial workflows. At the same time, the continued focus on HPC fundamentals demonstrates the importance of maintaining strong technical foundations to support future innovation.
The report also highlights the diversification of training methodologies adopted by the NCCs. In addition to seminars and webinars, activities increasingly include bootcamps, hackathons, summer schools, and tailored training sessions designed to address the needs of research communities, SMEs, public sector organisations, and domain-specific users.
This analytical overview demonstrates how European digital skills initiatives continue to evolve in response to emerging scientific and industrial priorities while strengthening collaboration, knowledge exchange, and technical readiness across the continent.
EuroCC 2 and EuroCC4SEE have received funding from the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 101101903 and No 101191697. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Digital Europe Programme and Germany, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Norway, Türkiye, Republic of North Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This material was created within the CASTIEL 2 project. This project has received funding from the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 101102047. The JU receives support from the European Union‘s Digital Europe Programme and Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Austria, Estonia.