GENCI that has held its first administrative coucil in January 2007, has been charged to establish and to secure the co-ordination of the principal equipment in the large national civil centres. This equipment can be accessed by all the interested scientific, academic and industrial communities. The co-operation between the public and private teams will be privileged.

Catherine Rivi&vmp:egrave;re is the President of GENCI, a civil enterprise sustained by the state for 50%, by the CEA for 20%, by the CNRS for 20%, and by the universities for 10%. Its annual budget will be 25 million euro which doubles the means mobilized by France for its high performance computation power.

In addition, the strategic committee of high performance computing will soon be established. This committee aims to favourize the prospective consultation of computing needs of the whole French scientific community and thus to provide feedback for the political elaboration of the state in this domain, to represent the concerning parties and to co-ordinate the investments.

"High performance computing is an essential element for the competitivity of the French research system. A necessary tool in the research area as well as in the industrial area, high performance computing is a decisive instrument to leverage the progress in domains as varied as climate research, astrophysics, combustion, aeronautics, petrol industry, nuclear technology, nanotechnology, pharmaceutics ... With a plan for investments of 25 million euro annually over four years, France will be at the level of the most performing European countries", stated Fran&vmp:ccedil;ois Goulard.