All posts by : Kateřina Beranová

The InnoVerse 2024 conference has become a key event supporting entrepreneurship, innovation, science, and technology not only in the Moravian-Silesian Region. We are proud to be the main partner of this inspiring event, which welcomed more than 500 participants to the auditorium of VSB—Technical University of Ostrava on 28 November 2024.

Through a hands-on workshop, pitch-deck session, and supercomputing booth, we showed participants that supercomputing is not science fiction but an effective tool for innovation.

However, the greatest success of this event lies in establishing contacts with several companies interested in learning more about the possibilities of adopting supercomputing in their practice.

This event represents a further step towards the broader deployment of high-performance computing in industry and research. We thank the organisers from the Moravian-Silesian Innovation Centre (MSIC) for this exceptional conference and look forward to the next edition.

Soak up the atmosphere of this year’s InnoVerse from the photo gallery below.

At the beginning of November, IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center held a conference for its current and future supercomputing users. During the programme, we introduced the participants to Europe’s most powerful supercomputer network and how to access it. This network also includes the Karolina supercomputer in Ostrava, operated by IT4Innovations.

Interested participants thus received the most up-to-date information on computing systems and planned innovations presented by the pan-European EuroHPC Joint Undertaking at the user conference held in Amsterdam in October.

However, we mainly presented key details about the five types of EuroHPC JU calls through which it is possible to apply for computational resources of European supercomputers. We also provided an overview of the evaluation process concerning the submitted project applications and the closure dates of each call.

At the end of October, the second edition of the EuroHPC User Day was held in Amsterdam. The meeting attracted nearly 200 participants, mainly active users of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking supercomputers. There were also representatives of supercomputer operators and downstream service providers, including the representatives of the Czech National Competence Centre in HPC.

The program included presentations of completed and upcoming supercomputing and quantum infrastructure installations. Furthermore, selected users presented their projects and shared best practices in their implementation using European supercomputers. The meeting also offered a space for consultation and networking with users of the operators of individual supercomputers operated under the EuroHPC JU. Interested participants also had the opportunity to learn about the Czech Karolina supercomputer, the planned quantum computer of the LUMI-Q consortium and the services of IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center.

An interesting part of the programme was the presentation of the current EuroHPC JU grant competitions for obtaining computational resources. These challenges are open not only for academics but also for companies and startups.

For those interested in the practical use of supercomputers, we offer expert consultations and help navigating through the most up-to-date access options. Do not hesitate to contact us.

Roman Iakymchuk, the co-principal investigator of the Center of Excellence* in Exascale CFD (CEEC), leads the work package on Exascale Algorithms. We spoke with him about the mission of CEEC, their pioneering efforts in exascale supercomputing, and the ambitious “lighthouse” use cases that aim to demonstrate the transformative potential of exascale computing for key computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications. Discover how CEEC is working to bring European supercomputing codes to an exascale-ready state, solve complex problems in gas and liquid flows, and share invaluable insights with the broader community.

Could you tell me more about the main mission of CEEC?

The mission of CEEC consists of 3 aspects.

Our main focus is to bring European supercomputing codes to the form suitable for exascale computing power, which is more than a quintillion (10¹⁸) calculations each second.

Some simulation codes can be partly solved with pre-exascale supercomputers but need the exascale power to be solved completely. We want to help solve more challenging problems connected to the topics of gases and liquid flows by the development of new efficient exascale codes. With the advantage of supercomputers and efficient numerical algorithms, complex systems like these flows can be simulated with increasing realism.

CEEC’s ambition is to enable the use of exascale computers for key computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications and demonstrate their capabilities through key lighthouse cases.

The last but not least aspect of CoE CEEC’s mission is to communicate our lessons learned to the community. Our experts share their expertise and experience with the code developers for example and support them with knowing how to transform codes to exascale form.

How do you see the use of exascale, and do you have a use case for exascale?

Our CoE CEEC has 6 lighthouse cases which are the use cases demonstrating the ambition to enable the use of exascale computers for key computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications. Lighthouse topics include, for example, atmospheric simulations, static mixers topology optimisation, aeroelastic simulations of the wing, localisation of the erosion of an offshore wind turbine, and more. Find the details on our website ceec-coe.eu

It was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you for your time. The interview was conducted during the High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering – HPCSE 2024 conference organised by IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center and supported by the National Competence Centre  in HPC (NCC) as the main partner.

Roman Iakymchuk

Co-principal investigator of the Center of Excellence for Exascale CFD (CEEC), Associate Professor (lecturer, docent) at Umeå University, Sweden

*There are ten Centres of Excellence launched by the European High Performance Computing (HPC) Joint Undertaking. The aim of the centre is to support research and Innovation actions that will develop and adapt HPC applications for the exascale and post-exascale supercomputing era. Exascale computing is a type of ultra-powerful supercomputing, with systems performing a quintillion 10¹⁸ calculations each second.

We not only introduced visitors to the use of supercomputers for AI and large language model development but also explained what supercomputers are, how they differ from regular computers, and how companies can use them effectively to improve their bottom line. We also discussed the cost of computational resources and presented information on the current FFplus call, which offers companies financial support for supercomputing projects.

We also observed a growing interest in quantum computing and its practical applications. What also caught the attention of many was the planned installation of a quantum computer in IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, marking a huge milestone in the field of state-of-the-art technologies in the Czech Republic.

We also observed a growing interest in quantum computing and its practical applications. What also caught the attention of many was the upcoming installation of a quantum computer in IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, marking a huge milestone in the field of state-of-the-art technologies in the Czech Republic.