Society nowadays faces grand challenges in competitiveness of industry and science where High-Performance Computing (HPC) is a key asset building European innovation capacity. HPC has been applied to increase discoveries and innovation in industry and academia, to decrease time to production and market and to lower costs in many industrial sectors. Even more it is needed to address societal challenges in understanding, curing, and preventing diseases to increase the quality of life: forecast the impact of climate change or help locating fuel are only some of the processes facilitated by the HPC. A reinforced and coordinated effort in Europe will ensure an independent access to HPC systems and services, an advance in computing technologies and software in a transition period from peta- to exa-flop technology. This will generate benefits for the ICT industry in computing and software in general. Thus, high-performance computing is crucial for Europe's industrial capabilities as well as for every individual citizen.