The community of particle physicists who have prepared the experiments for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and who are analysing the data face a major technical challenge: the enormous amount of data already obtained and to be recorded, which have never been processed with the computing systems used until now. To sort out this challenge, a series of initiatives have been carried out to set up a world network of computing nodes (GRID) communicating among themselves through a series of software protocols.

In order to satisfy the computing needs, CERN and the European Union have developed during the recent years different R&D projects. IFIC participates in several of this type of projects with the aim of developing a model of distributed computing in Spain and in Europe. This type of development can also interest the local industry and has a straightforward application to other research fields where distributed computing and communication are needed.