EuroCC ACCESS

NCC Czech Republic

The Czech National Competence Centre (NCC) is the reference and the single point of contact and coordination in the Czech Republic for high-performance computing (HPC) and data analysis (HPDA). Its mission is to analyse, implement, and coordinate all necessary activities and offer its services to end users to meet their needs: from access to supercomputers and technology consulting to providing training for industry, public administration, and academia.

In the Czech Republic, the National Competence Centre in HPC is represented by IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. It aims to gather the necessary expertise to create a trans-European network of national coordination centres on topics related to HPC. The centre was created under the auspices of the EuroCC project, which was approved by the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, and is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.

ABOUT US

OUR OBJECTIVE

  • Offer a broad portfolio of services tailored to the relevant needs of industry, public administration, and academia in the field of HPC.
  • Fill the gaps in the knowledge of HPC, promote cooperation at the national and international level, enable the implementation of best practices within Europe, and strengthen the technological autonomy and competitiveness of Czech companies.
  • Ensure a coordinated increase in the level of expertise and its adoption not only in HPC but also in related fields such as high-performance data analysis (HPDA) and artificial intelligence (AI).

OUR MISSION

  • Map existing competencies in HPC at the national level and identify knowledge gaps.
  • Coordinate the transfer of knowledge and provide consultations on HPC deployment possibilities.
  • Establish an education and information programme.
  • Provide access to national and European HPC computational resources and services.
  • Assist in the implementation of pilot solutions to raise awareness of HPC technologies.

OUR SERVICES

  • Education: courses, webinars, and workshops in relevant areas.
  • Sharing information obtained by mapping providers and consumers of HPC solutions in the Czech Republic.
  • Consulting services, design and implementation of pilot HPC solutions, and migration of existing solutions.
  • Intermediate partnerships between academia and public and private sectors.

WHO CAN USE OUR SERVICES?

  • Industry, small and medium-sized enterprises, start-ups,
  • public, regional, and state administration bodies,
  • academia.

OUR SUPERCOMPUTERS

Since 2013, IT4Innovations has been operating the most powerful supercomputing systems in the Czech Republic, which are provided to Czech and foreign research teams from both academia and industry. At present, IT4Innovations runs three supercomputers: Karolina (15.7 PFlop/s, installed in the summer of 2021), Barbora (849 TFlop/s, installed in the autumn of 2019), and the specialised NVIDIA DGX-2 system for artificial intelligence computation, (130 TFlop/s and 2 PFlop/s in AI, installed in the spring of 2019). The Karolina supercomputer, acquired as part of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, was the most powerful supercomputer in the Czech Republic on the day of its installation, 69th in the world (on the TOP500 list), and ranked 8th in the Green500 ranking of the most energy-efficient supercomputers.

SUCCESS STORIES

Read our success stories to find out how we help enterprises to overcome obstacles on their way to accessing and using supercomputers for their own innovation and development. We offer first-rate applied research and services focused on high-performance modelling and simulations, advanced data analysis, and application of artificial intelligence algorithms in various industrial sectors.