empowering innovations with supercomputers
and the quantum computer
IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava is a leading research, development, and innovation centre active in the fields of High-Performance Computing (HPC), Data Analysis (HPDA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Quantum Computing (QC) and their application to other scientific fields, industry, and society. IT4Innovations operates the most powerful supercomputing systems in the Czech Republic, provided to Czech and foreign research teams from academia and industry. Together with the CESNET and CERIT-SC institutions, IT4Innovations constitutes e-INFRA CZ, a strategic research infrastructure of the Czech Republic.
Since 2013, IT4Innovations has been providing state-of-the-art supercomputing technologies and services to both Czech and foreign research teams from academia and the private sector to increase the competitiveness and innovativeness of Czech science and industry.
At present, IT4Innovations runs two supercomputers:
the supercomputer Karolina (15.7 PFlop/s, installed in the summer of 2021), Barbora (849 TFlop/s, installed in the autumn of 2019), and the specialised NVIDIA DGX-2 system for artificial intelligence computation, (130 TFlop/s and 2 PFlop/s in AI, installed in the spring of 2019). Apart from the supercomputers operated at IT4Innovations, Czech research communities also have access to the LUMI supercomputer thanks to IT4Innovations' membership in the LUMI consortium.
In 2024 a contract has been signed for the delivery of the VLQ quantum computer which will be put into operation in 2025.
IT4Innovations is dedicated to research excellence in High Performance Computing (HPC), Data Analytics (HPDA), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Computing (QC). IT4Innovations' core research areas are big data processing and analysis, machine learning, development of parallel scalable algorithms and algorithms for quantum computers and simulators, solving challenging engineering problems, advanced visualization, virtual reality, modeling for nanotechnology, and material design.
IT4Innovations research activities are executed across 5 laboratories:
- Advanced Data Analysis and Simulations Lab,
- Infrastructure Research Lab,
- Parallel Algorithms Research Lab,
- Modelling for Nanotechnologies Lab,
- Quantum Computing Lab.
IT4Innovations also strongly focuses on cooperation with industrial enterprises, earning IT4Innovation the status of the Digital Innovation Hub registered at the European Commission level and is a member of DIHnet EU, the European network of digital innovation hubs. In this context, IT4Innovations has developed a partnership with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (part of VSB-TUO), and the Moravian-Silesian Innovation Centre Ostrava and the European Digital Innovation Hub Ostrava was established.
IT4Innovations not only focuses on providing access to cutting-edge computational systems, but also offers a wide range of professional training events aimed at gaining the knowledge needed to effectively use supercomputing infrastructure. IT4Innovations is also involved in training professionals in HPC, HPDA, QC and AI as part of the Informatics and Computational Science PhD study program. Experts from IT4Innovations also participate in teaching in computationally oriented study programmes offered by VSB-TUO from Bachelor's to Doctoral programmes.
History
Launch of the Anselm supercomputer
Mission of IT4Innovations
Our mission is to carry out excellent research in the field of high-performance computing and advanced data analysis, and to operate the leading national supercomputing infrastructure, mediating its effective use in order to increase the competitiveness and innovation of Czech science and industry.
Vision of IT4Innovations
Our vision is to become a leading supercomputing center that provides professional services and conducts excellent research in the field of high-performance computing and processing of advanced data sets for the benefit of science, industry, and the whole of society.