The Supercomputing Conference 2024 (SC24) in Atlanta has reaffirmed its status as the world’s premier gathering of high-performance computing (HPC) professionals. The event attracted over 18,000 attendees and 494 exhibitors, showcasing cutting-edge advancements in the field. Among the participants was IT4Innovations, the Czech national supercomputing centre, proudly presenting its latest projects and services on the global stage.

IT4Innovations: Cutting-edge technology and collaboration

The IT4Innovations exhibit booth captivated attendees with its showcase of advanced infrastructure, services, and key projects, including the international ones. A highlight was e-INFRA CZ, a unique e-infrastructure providing complex capacities and resources for the transmission, storage and processing of scientific data to all entities engaged in research and development. Also garnering attention was the interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence CLARA, dedicated to research on neurodegenerative diseases.

Another standout was LEXIS Platform 2, which enables automatised workflows across Cloud and HPC systems, on site or across different European supercomputing centres.

Highlighting IT4Innovations research
The conference programme also featured contributions from IT4Innovations representatives:

Ondřej Vysocký and Lubomír Říha presented the VR Dashboard for Data Centre Monitoring, highlighting the digital model of IT4Innovations' data room. This innovative project is being developed through collaboration between the Infrastructure Research Lab, system administrators, and operations managers.
The model integrates data from the MERIC software package, which ensures infrastructure monitoring and optimises the supercomputer’s energy consumption. The photorealistic visualisation, brought to life in virtual reality, is powered by an extension of the Blender extension.

At the conference's poster session, Paulo Silva, alongside Jan Martinovič and Kateřina Slaninová, showcased collaborative research conducted with Sygic – Assessing the Impact of Real-Time Traffic Updates on Traffic Flow: A High-Performance Computing Perspective on Scalability and Demand. The research explores the impact of real-time traffic data updates on urban traffic flow and the scalability of such solutions using supercomputers. 

Karina Pešatová, Head of the Training and Education Department, participated in the Birds of a Feather session titled HPC Outreach: Mastering the Art of Science Communication, focused on popularising HPC. She was also part of the Super(computing) Heroes session, aimed at creating a more inclusive HPC community by supporting women in the field.

TOP500 list: Karolina remains among the elite

As part of SC24, the latest TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers was unveiled. The Czech supercomputer Karolina, specifically its GPU partition, ranked 165th – an impressive result after more than three years of operation.

The top spot on the list is now held by the U.S. system El Capitan, boasting a theoretical performance of 2.7 EFlop/s and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Among European systems, the most powerful is the privately-operated Italian HPC6 in 5th place, followed by Switzerland’s Alps (7th place, Swiss National Supercomputing Centre) and two systems funded by the European EuroHPC Joint Undertaking – LUMI and Leonardo.

The Future of HPC: Artificial intelligence and quantum computing

"I definitely see a growing trend of convergence between HPC and AI and the increasing influence of quantum computing. I think that we at IT4Innovations have identified these directions early and we have certainly not missed the train. We just need to invest more in our infrastructure, without which it will be difficult to keep up with this global development," said Vít Vondrák, Director of IT4Innovations.

The integration of HPC, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing is unlocking new possibilities for research and applications. The upcoming European ISC 2025 conference, in which IT4Innovations regularly participates, will focus on this transformative technological trio reshaping science and industry.