After winning HPCwire Awards in 2024 and 2025, ECMWF together with several national meteorological services and partners across Europe, is again nominated in this year’s HPCwire Reader’s Choice Awards.
ECMWF and its partners are nominated in three of the 2026 HPCwire Readers' Choice Awards categories; "Best Use of HPC/AI in Physical Sciences", "Best HPC/AI Response to Societal Plight" and "Best HPC/AI Collaboration".
In addition, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET Norway) has been shortlisted separately in the category “Best HPC/AI Programming Tool or Technology” for its work applying the open-source Anemoi framework.
Voting for the shortlisted entries is open on the HPCwire website until 2 October 2026.
Best Use of HPC/AI in Physical Sciences
Anemoi is recognised in the category “Best Use of HPC/AI in Physical Sciences” after winning last year's award for “Best Use of AI Methods for Augmenting HPC Applications”. This year’s nomination recognises the use of Anemoi together with the LUMI supercomputer to develop and operationalise a new generation of AI weather forecasting models.
Anemoi is an open-source software ecosystem, co-developed by ECMWF and several national meteorological services across Europe, enabling the development, training and operation of large-scale AI models for weather and climate. It underpins the development of ECMWF’s Artificial Intelligence Forecasting System (AIFS), as well as other AI weather forecasting models in Europe, such as the Bris regional model at MET Norway and the AICON global model at the German National Meteorological Service (DWD).
Anemoi also supports the development of an AI Earth-system model in the Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative of the European Commission. EuroHPC supercomputers, such as LUMI, MareNostrum5, Leonardo, Jupiter or MeLuXina, provide key computing infrastructure for training and developing AI-driven models within DestinE.
Best HPC/AI Response to Societal Plight
The nomination in the category "Best HPC/AI Response to Societal Plight" recognises Forecast-in-a-Box and the developers and enablers behind it at ECMWF and MET Norway.
Forecast-in-a-Box is designed to make AI-based weather forecasting tools easier to deploy and use. It brings together open-source software and AI models developed by ECMWF and its Member and Co-operating States, including Anemoi, earthkit, ECMWF’s AIFS and MET Norway’s Bris, in ready-to-use forecasting workflows.
These cover the entire forecasting chain, from data input and running simulations to post-processing and visualisation. The approach allows users to run and adapt AI-based forecasts on their own systems or through cloud infrastructures, helping to strengthen national forecasting capabilities and support early warning initiatives.
The approach is currently being prototyped both in DestinE and within the framework of a World Meteorological Organization (WMO)-endorsed project for Malawi, through a collaboration between MET Norway and Malawi’s Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services.
Best HPC/AI Collaboration (Academia/Government/Industry)
Finally, ECMWF’s collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) is recognised in the category "Best HPC/AI Collaboration (Academia/Government/Industry)".
ECMWF and BSC work closely together to advance climate modelling and AI. One prime example of this collaboration is within the DestinE initiative, which leverages the power of EuroHPC supercomputers to build a digital twin in support of climate change adaptation (Climate DT). The Climate DT is implemented by a broad European partnership led by CSC – IT Center for Science, working in close collaboration with ECMWF. Within DestinE, BSC and ECMWF also collaborate closely on the development of an ML-based climate emulator in an activity led by Predictia.
European collaboration to advance weather and climate science
These nominations underline the role of ECMWF and partners in its Member and Co-operating States in advancing Earth system science and AI for weather and climate predictions. The nominated projects are the result of extensive collaboration across Europe and beyond.
Anemoi is enabling the operationalisation of advanced AI forecasting tools across Europe, thanks to contributions from ECMWF, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), MeteoSwiss, Belgium’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI), Météo-France, the German National Meteorological Service (DWD), MET Norway, the UK Met Office, GeoSphere Austria, the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) and others.
Forecast-in-a-Box similarly brings together expertise from ECMWF, MET Norway, and Malawi’s Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services. By combining European developments in AI-based forecasting with operational meteorological expertise and local requirements, the collaboration explores how emerging AI technologies can be translated into practical forecasting capabilities and made accessible to a wider range of national meteorological services.
Collaboration is also central to activities ECMWF implements in Destination Earth, together with ESA and EUMETSAT under the lead of EC’s DG CONNECT, and in close collaboration with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. The initiative brings together expertise from across Europe, with ECMWF working alongside national meteorological services, supercomputing centres including BSC, CSC, Cineca and Juelich, climate centers, academic and industrial partners, to develop new approaches to physics and AI-based Earth system modelling and make use of Europe’s world-class EuroHPC infrastructure.
Together, the nominations highlight how collaboration across national meteorological services, research institutions, supercomputing centers, international organisations and European initiatives is helping to advance the use of HPC and AI in weather and climate science. They also demonstrate the value of sharing expertise, infrastructure and open technologies to develop forecasting and climate information that can benefit users in Europe and beyond.