Germany

The EBRAINS National Node Germany (NNG) is currently in its start-up phase and open to the national, neuroscientific community, regardless of a Human Brain Project (HBP) membership. About 40 universities and research institutions across Germany are currently joining forces to develop a common scientific and technical strategy for the EBRAINS NNG, addressing the major scientific challenges of our time.  

The EBRAINS NNG partners offer unique services, including science liaison activities, for neuroscience, medical applications, and industry in the fields of:  

• High-Performance Computing  
• Neuromorphic Computing  
• Artificial Intelligence  
• Simulation  
• Robotics  
• Information privacy and security  

The Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine of Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) provides, for example, the world’s most comprehensive atlas of the human brain in 3D, including user interfaces, as well as tailored IT tools for modelling, simulation and AI-based analysis of large and complex data sets. The two largest Neuromorphic Computing systems in Europe, BrainScaleS and SpiNNaker, are built by the node members Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and Technische Universität Dresden (in collaboration with the University of Manchester). Both systems are accessible through EBRAINS, enabling collaborative research. Moreover, the NNG provides access to the Fenix e-infrastructure services, which are developed and operated by FZJ’s Jülich Supercomputing Centre together with five other European supercomputing centres, and which offers federated computing, cloud, network and storage resources. The node member Charité, one of Europe’s largest university hospitals, leads the development of GDPR-compliant services to enable the processing of human digital twins and co-leads The Virtual Brain platform that enables patient specific brain simulation on EBRAINS.      

The EBRAINS NNG is coordinated by FZJ, one of the largest interdisciplinary science centres in Europe using cutting-edge technologies in the fields of energy, information and bioeconomy using a unique infrastructure of large-scale equipment - from supercomputers and neutron sources to high-resolution electron microscopes.