The first ever PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) HPC Excellence Award has been awarded to a team led by Professor Nicola Marzari, head of Theory and Simulation of Materials at EPFL's School of Engineering and Materials Simulations at PSI, and director of NCCR MARVEL. The € 20,000 award is given to “an outstanding individual or team for ground-breaking research that leads to significant advances in any research field through the usage of high-performance computing”, and recognizes the team’s effort in the discovery and characterization of novel two-dimensional materials.