Czechia participates in the development of new technologies for European supercomputers
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) will provide funding to research institutions from the Czech Republic to participate in international research, development and innovation projects, to be realised in the framework of the EuroHPC Joint Technology Initiative. Projects selected for financial support from public funds under the calls launched by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking in 2020 will be implemented by 2024, and over CZK 53 million in total will be allocated by the MEYS for their financing. The European Commission will support the Czech project participants with the same amount through the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. The Czech participants in the EuroHPC projects are the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre, operated by the VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava, and Masaryk University through the Central European Institute of Technology in Brno. Czech research teams will be involved in a total of 5 EuroHPC projects, namely LIGATE, SCALABLE, ACROSS, IO-SEA and EUROCC.
IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre
EuroHPC Joint Technology Initiative
The key objective of the EuroHPC Joint Technology Initiative is to develop knowledge and technology in the field of High Performance Computing (HPC) in the EU, as these are the vital prerequisites for the successful implementation of the digital economy concept in Europe. A total of 32 European countries, in a close cooperation with the European Commission, are participating in the activities of the EuroHPC Joint Technology Initiative, which are intended to ensure Europe’s international competitiveness, self-sufficiency and independence in the field of HPC. HPC is becoming a tool to address key scientific and societal challenges, such as early detection of diseases and development of new medical treatments, predicting climate change, preventing and managing natural disasters, or accelerating development of new materials. The new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus strain and COVID-19 disease pandemic are another example of the use of HPC technologies, which, among other things, help accelerate development of new drugs and vaccines, forecast virus spread, deploy and distribute scarce medical devices, or analyse efficiency of measures against the spread of the disease and socio-economic development scenarios in the post-pandemic period.
IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre – Supercomputer „BARBORA“
IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre
The Czech Republic contributes to the development of HPC technologies in Europe in particular by the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre, hosted by the VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava, representing the HPC component of the Czech national e-infrastructure e-INFRA CZ consortium. An important milestone reached by Czechia in the field of HPC is the success of IT4Innovations in the pan-European call to host the petascale supercomputers. The “KAROLINA” petascale supercomputer will be installed in Ostrava in May 2021. In addition, the Czech Republic and the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center also succeeded as the Members of the LUMI consortium, led by Finland and associating Czechia, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland, to acquire and operate the “LUMI” pre-exascale supercomputer. The supercomputer system will be acquired in 2021 and installed in Kajaani, Finland, thus becoming one of the most powerful and energy-efficient supercomputers in Europe and all around the world.
IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre – Supercomputer „KAROLINA“