On 12 November 2008 Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic officially launched the National Supercomputing Initiative. The seven-year, 14 MEuro project proposed by SCL-IPB will be jointly funded from National and EU sources. The launch coincided with the start of SCL-IPB membership in PRACE (Partnership for advanced computing in Europe), and the designation of IPB as the referent institution for implementation and development of HPC in Serbia. IPB will host NSI’s new flagship facility, the Blue Danube Supercomputing Center.