National Competence Centre for High-Performance Computing
Mr Milutin Pavicevic (Alicorn CEO and PhD candidate at the UDG) and Mr Kosta Pavlovic (PhD candidate at the UCG) were invited to the national TV program “Good morning Montenegro”. The discussion was focused on AI and ChatGPT, perspectives and possibilties.
At the panel discussion called “Strategic planning of digitization of higher education in Montenegro in the post-COVID-19 era” in Chamber of Commerce of Montenegro, the project EuroCC2 – National Competence Centers for HPC, which has started with its implementation was presented today.
Representing the University of Donja Gorica and NCC Montenegro, the general manager of UDG Assoc. Dr. Sandra Tinaj, who was one of the panelists, along with representatives of other higher education institutions in Montenegro, addressed the present audience. She pointed out that the EuroCC2 project is of great importance precisely in the field of digitization of higher education, but also invited all interested members of the general public to contact the HPC Montenegro Center in case of providing additional information and support – in order to raise awareness of the importance of this project, but also the opportunities that it can provide to our community in general.
We are excited that NCC Montenegro is going to be a part of EuroCC2 and Castiel2 projects. The EuroHPC JU continues to fund two flagship projects, EuroCC and Castiel, to build a European network of National Competence Centres for HPC, acting as a hub to promote and facilitate HPC uptake and related technologies across a range of industries. The projects were selected following the call DIGITAL-EUROHPC-JU-2022-NCC-01Search for available translations of the preceding link. The main goal of the EuroCC2 is promoting HPC to boost digital skills, jobs and industrial competitiveness in Europe.
Starting on 1st January 2023, the project EuroCC2 will run for a 3-year period with a total budget of up to €62 million, provided by the Digital Europe Programme and the EuroHPC Participating States. CASTIEL 2 will also run for a 3-year period starting 1st January 2023 and receive up to €3 million funding from the Digital Europe Programme.
EuroCC 2 and Castiel 2 follow on from EuroCC and Castiel, which started on 1 September 2020 and ran for two years. The two projects received funding from Horizon 2020. More info at the EuroCC2 website.
In the period from 15th – 18th of February the 27th international scientific and professional conference “INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES 2023” (IEEE IT 2023) will traditionally be hosted in Zabljak. The conference will be held in the organization of: University of Montenegro – Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Donja Gorica – Faculty of Information Systems and Technologies, IT Society Montenegro, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Organizational Sciences, IEEE Association and IEEE Section for Serbia and Montenegro, with full support of the company Cikom from Podgorica. The chairman of the conference is prof. dr Bozo Krstajic from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Montenegro.
Lectures and round table discussions will be organized at the Conference on trends in the development of information and communication technologies in the world, as well as current events in this field in Montenegro. Special session dedicated to project presentations will include EuroCC2 project – National Competence Centres for HPC, two H2020-MSCA projects TRACEWINDU and ODDEA, H2020 projects NI4OS-Europe and DEMETER, Eureka TRADE, Erasmus DigNest, and others.
The conference will include: a short course for Edge AI in IoT solutions (organzed by ANSO and EuroCC Montenegro), an HPC/AI workshop with applications, a presentation of the European cloud of open science and the results of successful international projects. This year, a student workshop will also be held as part of the DigNEST project, which will focus on IT innovations in the field of health and agriculture. In addition to the above mentioned, the papers that have arrived and refer to topics from these areas will also be presented at the Conference.
All those interested can follow the activities at the Conference online as well, through the video conference access links available on the official website of the Conference (link).
The full title of this new project is “Building scientific and innovation potential to utilize HPC and AI for S3 Smart Specialisation in Montenegro – HPC4S3ME” and it is funded by the IPA II program, call reference EuropeAid/172-351/ID/ACT/ME.
The overall objective of HPC4S3ME project is to contribute to straightening research excellence by building scientific and innovation potential based on the use of high performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI) for applications in industrial domains proposed by the Smart Specialisation Strategy (2019-2024) for Montenegro. The implementation of this project will provide a state-of-the-art environment for young researchers to gain experience in research and development in computer science, more specifically to apply machine learning and deep learning algorithms supported by HPC in order to create innovative information-communication technology solutions for applications in agriculture and food value chain, health and tourism, energy and sustainable environment, namely the priority domains identified by the smart specialisation strategy. This is a two-year project and it starts in Jan 2023.
MAIA – Montenegrin AI Association is a Non-Governmental organization, founded in September 2022 with an ambition to bring together the Montenegrin AI community. Our goal is to popularize Artificial Intelligence related research and spread awareness of its importance in our country, but also encourage our society to join the fast wave of AI innovation in the World. Several NCC Montenegro team members are taking part in this initiative. Check MAIA website for more details at the following link.
A hosting agreement has been signed between the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET) in Greece where DAEDALUS, a new EuroHPC supercomputer will be located. University of Donja Gorica is one of the partners in the implementation of the project.
Once procured, DAEDALUS will be a mid-range supercomputer, able to perform more than 30 petaflops or 30 million billion calculations per second. This new supercomputer will be managed and operated by GRNET, the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology in Greece. DAEDALUS will be installed in the historical 19th century Electric Power Station building in Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park and is expected to have an overall surface area of 1500 m2.
The supercomputer will power new applications in a wide range of areas, such as engineering, chemistry, health sciences and will be used to visualise and solve scientific problems. It will advance science and boost the innovation potential of enterprises while improving the European citizens’ quality of life.
DAEDALUS, at a total acquisition cost of EUR 33 million, will be co-funded with a maximum total budget of up to EUR 10 million by the EuroHPC JU (35%) and Greece (65% of national funds). Cyprus, Montenegro and North Macedonia are also involved in the project as members of the DAEDALUS consortium. This partnership is strategic for the European Union as it will support science and technology in the wider area of South-East Europe.
DAEDALUS Partners:
Links for more details: