NEWS

VSB-Technical University of Ostrava (VSB-TUO), in cooperation with the University of Ostrava (OU) and other partners, is launching the REFRESH project to respond to the region's problems and contribute to its thriving economic, energy, and environmental transformation. The project also involves IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center.

The Netherlands has become the eleventh member of the LUMI consortium, which hosts the LUMI supercomputer – Europe's flagship supercomputer – at CSC’s data center in Kajaani, Finland.

On 5 March 2024, a key event on the future of European supercomputers and artificial intelligence was hosted by the LUMI consortium in Brussels. The need to unify and connect ecosystems in data, high-performance computing, quantum technologies, and artificial intelligence was discussed. The systematic development of skills and competencies in these areas was also a topic. Prominent speakers, including Andrus Ansip, a member of the European Parliament, and Margrethe Vestager, a European Commissioner, brought interesting perspectives on the current situation and the future of the European supercomputing and AI ecosystem. Moreover, the energy efficiency of supercomputers and the development of quantum technologies within Europe were also discussed. Branislav Jansík, Supercomputing Services Director at IT4Innovations, also featured at the event.

The EuroHPC Summit brings together top HPC professionals annually and has been held since 2016. This year, for the second time, the main organizer is the EuroHPC Joint Union. European supercomputing stakeholders, public and private, decision-makers, and our colleagues from IT4Innovations will also be present. Sharing knowledge and innovation connects the HPC community across Europe.

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has published a new type of Access Call for AI and Data-Intensive Applications. The call is designed to serve industry organisations, small to medium enterprises (SMEs), startups, as well as public sector entities, requiring access to supercomputing resources to perform artificial intelligence and data intensive activities.

The Karolina supercomputer, located at the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre, was commissioned in the summer of 2021 and has since been used by more than 1,700 users to solve more than 700 projects. A substantial software upgrade is planned to ensure alignment with current tool and application versions. This necessitates a complete shutdown of the Karolina supercomputer, which is scheduled for approximately four weeks starting 8 April.

Dear fans of IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center,

We wish you a successful year in 2024 and bring you this year's first newsletter with a summary of the most important news not only from IT4Innovations. The LUMI supercomputer has been fully available to the Czech scientific community for one year. We now have two full-featured cloud environments that are at your disposal. We are constantly working on improving our courses within the National Competence Centre in HPC. Please fill out a questionnaire so we can better understand your needs and ensure the quality of the training. We have announced the results of the 30th Open Access Grant Competition and launched another round of grant competition. We also report on some selected projects from the previous competition.

Read on to ensure you don't miss anything from the world of supercomputing. →

The IT4Innovations Team

The world's ocean covers an area that represents almost 71% of the planet's surface and is home to a wealth of plant and animal species. Although the Czech Republic is a landlocked country with no access to any of the oceans, this does not mean that it cannot contribute to their exploration. Scientists from IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center have joined the DTO-BioFlow project, which will collect previously unavailable or difficult-to-access marine biodiversity data and integrate it into the biodiversity component of the Digital Twin Ocean.

IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center became a member of the iRODS Consortium in 2023, joining such names as BAYER, DDN, Fujifilm and others. The consortium brings together businesses, research organisations, universities, and government agencies from around the world to ensure the sustainability of the iRODS software as a solution for distributed storage, transfer, and management of data. Members cooperate with the consortium to guide further development and innovation, expand its user and developer communities, and provide adequate support and educational resources.

On 6 February we announced the 31st Open Access Grant Competition. Applications for computing time on the Karolina, Barbora, DGX-2, and LUMI systems can be submitted by employees of Czech research organisations until 4 April 2024. Results will be announced in May.

In October 2023, we announced the 30th Open Access Grant Competition, in which applicants from various research organisations applied for almost 2 million node hours.

Bringing the world of supercomputers and all that surrounds them closer to all generations is also the focus of the second edition of the Superheroes 4 Science (S4S) project. This time, the project also focuses on artificial intelligence and quantum computing. S4S is under the coordination of IT4Innovations and has the support of the International Visegrad Fund. Its main mission is the creation of interactive educational materials and the dissemination of awareness of these innovative technologies through popularisation activities.

We have launched two full-featured cloud environments. These are available to users of IT4Innovations computational resources with active projects.

The National Competence Centre for HPC (NCC) prepares courses not only for users of IT4Innovations computational resources.
It is currently preparing a training programme for the coming period. You can help shape it by filling in the questionnaire.
Your feedback is essential.

The LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer has a theoretical peak performance of 580+ PFlop/s and is located in Kajaani, Finland. The supercomputer was made fully operational and accepted in February 2023 and has been fully available to the Czech scientific community for one year. Czech scientists have access to Europe's most powerful supercomputer, LUMI, thanks to IT4Innovations' membership in the eponymous consortium.

Virtualisation of railway conditions and implementation of test rides in a laboratory environment. The software simulator, developed by National Supercomputing Center IT4Innovations, is designed to perform all of this and is a key component for the development of a functional sample of a detection system capable of detecting potential obstacles during the train's operation, thus contributing significantly to safer railway operation.

Discover the world of High-Performance Computing (HPC) and HPC-related technologies through the European Master's programme EUMaster4HPC. Earn two Masters degrees in just two years! The deadline for your application is 15 July. If selected, you'll start studying in the Autumn Semester of 2024 and receive a full scholarship.

At its meeting on 19 December 2023, the Academic Senate of the Technical University of Ostrava approved the transformation of the Laboratory of Big Data Analysis into the Laboratory of Quantum Computing.

Find the latest news, not only from our Supercomputing Center in Ostrava,
in the IT4Innovations Newsletter 8/2023.

Employees of research organisations based in the Czech Republic had until 26 November 2023 to apply for computing time on the accelerated part of the LUMI supercomputer (LUMI-G) in our Special Call on Important Societal Challenges: Access for AI and GPU Accelerated Applications.