GENCI, Grand Equipement National de Calcul Intensif, is a legal entity taking the form of a «société civile» under French law, owned for 49 % by the French State represented by the Ministry for Higher Education and Research, for 20 % by CEA, 20 % by CNRS, 10 % by the Universities and 1% by INRIA.

GENCI was created by a strong political will to place France at the best European and international rank in the field of HPC. It associates the main HPC actors of academic French research and benefits from public authorities’ support. GENCI has the following missions since its beginning in 2007:

settle and coordinate the major computer equipment for the French computer centers for civilian research, by providing for their financing and assuming their ownership;

promote the organization of European high performance computing and participate to its actions. GENCI represents France in the PRACE project;

promote the use of modeling, simulation and high performance computing in fundamental and industrial research.