ffplus

EUR 8 million for companies interested in solving their challenges with supercomputers

The FFplus project has launched a new open call for small and medium-sized European enterprises. The call is aimed at agile, innovative companies that decide to use supercomputers in practice and gain a competitive advantage in the market.

Strengthening innovation and development of European industry

The FFplus project is the fourth edition of a highly successful initiative that directly addresses how to help businesses overcome the barriers to using supercomputing and high-performance data analytics in practice or working with and developing generative AI. In particular, the aim is to strengthen the global competitiveness of European industry.

In recent years, dozens of companies from all over Europe have successfully passed the open calls for using supercomputers. Be inspired by their stories published on the FFplus website.  

The FFplus call is divided into two parts:

1. BUSINESS EXPERIMENTS

The first part of the call is aimed at enterprises with no previous supercomputing experience across all sectors. In this call, enterprises can submit their “experiments”, i.e. projects that solve a specific business challenge using supercomputing technologies, high-performance data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Experiments are expected to last a maximum of 15 months, with a scheduled commencement date of 1 January 2025.

Experiment duration expected: max. 15 months.

Planned start date: 1 January 2025.

An amount of EUR 4 million for funding experiments will be distributed among all selected individual projects. There is a limit of EUR 200,000 per experiment application.

The deadline for applications is 4 September 2024 at 5:00 p.m.

2. INNOVATION STUDIES

The second part of the FFplus call will support companies and startups that are already active in generative AI but lack the necessary computational resources to develop their own models. The aim is to facilitate and strengthen the technological development of European companies in AI.

Participating companies will be supported in increasing their innovation potential by leveraging new generative AI models, such as large language models (LLMs), based on their expertise, application domain, business model, and potential for expansion.

Submitted “innovation studies / use cases” must use extensive European supercomputing resources (pre-exascale and exascale) to develop and adapt generative AI models (e.g. LLM).

Experiment duration expected: max. 10 months.

Planned start date: 1 December 2024.

An amount of EUR 4 million for funding experiments will be distributed among all selected individual projects. There is a limit of EUR 300,000 per study application.

The deadline for applications is 4 September 2024 at 5:00 p.m.

Are you interested in this opportunity? Find out more on the FFplus website.

Contact us, and experts at the National Competence Centre in HPC will gladly assist with the experiment’s setup and submission.

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Veletrh vědy 2024 - superpočítačové centrum IT4Innovations

Supercomputers in the Spotlight at the 2024 Science Fair

The National Competence Center for High-Performance Computing (HPC) was once again a prominent presence at the Science Fair, the largest science popularisation event in the Czech Republic for children and the general public. At the IT4Innovations booth, the national supercomputing centre, more than 1800 participants engaged in the prize program. Overall, the event reported participation from over 58,000 science enthusiasts.

During the event, we primarily disseminated basic information about the existence of the national supercomputing center in Ostrava, which currently operates two supercomputers: Karolina and Barbora. We explained what supercomputers are, their applications, and who can access them. Additionally, we highlighted the opportunity for Czech companies to test the computational power of supercomputers through the services of the National Competence Center for HPC.

For those interested in deeper technical details, we showcased the retired hardware components of the Salomon supercomputer. Visitors could also verify their knowledge of supercomputing through a fun quiz, and the “Harry Potter and the Magic of Supercomputing” game was a big hit with children.

This year’s Science Fair, organized by the Czech Academy of Sciences since 2015, took place at the PVA Expo in Letňany, Prague, from May 30th to June 1st, 2024.

Feel free to check out the short photo report and immerse yourself in the local atmosphere!

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HPCSE 2024: New partnerships, discussions, and success stories of using supercomputers in practice

Successful partnership of the High-Performance Computing in Science and Engineering 2024 Conference

We are pleased to have had the opportunity to participate as a partner in organising the High-Performance Computing in Science and Engineering (HPCSE 2024) conference for the second time. Since 2013, IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center in Ostrava has organised the conference at regular two-year intervals.

Nearly 90 experts from the world of supercomputing, high-performance data analysis, AI, and quantum computing gathered at the Soláň Hotel in the Beskydy mountains from 20 to 23 May 2024. Experts, scientists, and representatives of Centres of Excellence and industry were present. At the conference, the National Competence Centre in HPC (NCC) presented its activities and services and, above all, its educational programmes and collaboration success stories in practice.

Tomáš Karásek, Head of the NCC, spoke during the presentation about the interest of Czech companies in using supercomputers.  “Since our foundation, we have already established a number of successful collaborations with companies in practice across industries. From healthcare to architectural studios and construction, energy, engineering, transport, security, industry, agriculture, and more,” says Tomáš Karásek.

Moreover, thanks to networking, we managed to establish new valuable contacts.  We discussed the possibilities of cooperation and networking with the community of Czech AI startups, for whom our services and European calls for computational resources may be interesting. The conference also produced interesting interviews with selected participants, which you can look forward to soon. So, stay in touch with us, whether it be via social media or the newsletter.

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ISC 2024: We presented Czech Success Stories to More Than 3,000 Participants of the European Supercomputing Conference

Visitors to ISC High Performance 2024, the largest European conference and exhibition of providers and users of supercomputing technologies, were introduced to several successful Czech collaborations in practice.

The conference was held in Hamburg, Germany, from 12 to 16 May. At the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center booth, we presented mainly success stories produced in collaboration with companies testing the use of supercomputers in practice thanks to cooperation with the Czech National Competence Centre in HPC (NCC).

Our other objectives also included getting feedback and valuable suggestions in the survey of users’ educational needs, establishing new contacts for potential collaborations as well as meeting existing partners from the supercomputing community.

In addition, Tomáš Karásek, Head of the NCC, led one of the presentations at the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking booth focused on the EuroCC2 project and the role of local National Competence Centres in Europe.

During the conference, we also had the opportunity to learn about many examples of success stories of using supercomputers in practice. Would you like to know more? Follow our social networks.

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