La Commission s'attaque aux réseaux[en] 

EU funding played an important role in bringing, within the past five years, grid technologies out of research laboratories into industry applications. Typically, grid networks consist of thousands of computers merged into one supercomputer, used to perform computing tasks on very large data sets, which are broken down into smaller portions. Processes are distributed on demand to computers making up the network through a technology known as parallel computing. 

Grids can be used to create joint-engineering environments, for financial applications, in research (see EurActiv, 15 June 2005) and for many other purposes that require huge data sets. Carmakers can, for example, share computer prototypes of upcoming models over different departments located far apart from each other, to perform development, design and security testing, all based on the same state of the prototype. 

On 19 September 2006, the Commission launched 23 projects researching and developing grid technology under the Sixth EU Research Framework Programme (FP6). The projects bring together more than 100 industry participants and around 200 academic institutions. 

The lion's share of the funding - almost half - goes to three projects, which aim to: 

• Test and accelerate the take-up of grids in business sectors such as entertainment, finances, chemistry, retail and textiles;
• extend the open-source operating system Linux with grid services and support for virtual organisations, and;
• bring grid technologies from academic environments to airports for logistics-management applications.

In September 2004, the Commission launched 12 similar projects on grids.