NCC Montenegro is highlighting ongoing FFplus Open Calls to empower SMEs and Startups to develop innovative products and services with the support of HPC and AI.
European SMEs and Startups have the opportunity to shift their innovation potential through the two types of FFplus Open Calls (total budget €24.0 million):
Business experiments addressing the uptake of HPC for specific business challenges of SMEs that have had no prior use of HPC services. The maximum funding request per proposal is € 200,000.
Innovation studies, supporting SMEs and startups already active in the field of generative AI technology, which lack the necessary computational resources to scale up. The maximum funding for each innovation study is € 300,000.
Application deadline: September 4th, 2024!
Find out more about FFplus Open Calls, application details and NCC Montenegro’s support on:
The Montenegrin National Center of Competence in High Performance Computing (NCC Montenegro) invites Montenegrin companies to take advantage of the unique opportunity to improve their business using advanced HPC technologies and artificial intelligence and apply for the FFplus call for business experiments and innovative studies. NCC Montenegro, as a center that coordinates initiatives in the field of HPC at the national level, will provide support in the assessment of the company’s readiness for HPC and AI, but also in the selection of EuroHPC JU resources and in finding partners in accordance with expertise and potential.
FFplus is a European initiative that highlights and promotes the adoption of High Performance Computing (HPC) by SMEs and start-ups across Europe. The scope of targeted actions includes solving business challenges through computer methods (modeling and simulation, data analytics) on HPC systems, as well as the use of supercomputer resources for the development of software solutions and (generative) artificial intelligence (AI) services.
With more than a decade long history and a strong reputation in Europe, the Fortissimo projects (Fortissimo 1 and 2, FF4EuroHPC) received a budget of 42.8 million euros and successfully performed more than 130 experiments involving more than 300 partners. These efforts have resulted in 120 success stories from over 20 EU countries, where SMEs have developed new products and services with the help of high-performing computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence, thereby boosting the EU economy. Building on the methods and achievements of the Fortissimo project series, the FFplus call, with a total budget of EUR 30.0 million, including EUR 24.0 million for SMEs and startups, will continue to support and empower SMEs and startups towards innovations.
SMEs and start-ups now have the opportunity to convey their innovative potential through two types of open calls of the FFPlus project (open until September 4th, 2024):
Business experiments will address HPC adoption by SMEs to address specific business challenges of SMEs that have not previously used or had no experience with HPC services.
The maximum request for financing per proposal is 200,000 euros. Expected duration of the experiments: a maximum of 15 months with a planned start on January 1st, 2025.
Per application, it is possible to have a maximum of five partners in the consortium
The call is intended for experiments involving innovative, agile SMEs, focused on innovations resulting from the use of advanced HPC services.
Innovation studies will support European SMEs and start-ups already active in the field of generative AI technology, which lack the necessary computing resources to scale up.
The maximum total funding for each innovation study is 300,000 euros. Expected duration of the experiments: a maximum of 10 months with a planned start on December 1st, 2024.
A maximum of three partners are allowed per application. There are no indirect costs.
Creating history: the first Montenegrin success story in the Fortisimo project
Within the framework of the five-day Fortissimo call, FF4EuroHPC, the consortium with the support of NCC Montenegro, which included Montenegrin partners DigitalSmart doo (coordinator), Radinović Company, Meso-Promet Franca, University of Donja Gorica, and DunavNET from Serbia, implemented a successful pilot project-experiment AIMHIGH in which partners used HPC, machine learning and IoT technology in agriculture to develop a new solution for monitoring and predicting diseases among poultry.
Are you ready for supercomputing and artificial intelligence?
Montenegrin companies that want to find out if they are ready to use supercomputers and AI technologies in their business can do so by filling out the HPC4SME company assessment tool and find out if and how the organization can benefit from free supercomputer services. Companies that are interested in carrying out the assessment and filling out the questionnaire will be additionally supported by the Montenegrin National Competence Center NCC Montenegro.
For more information about the call, you can visit the website of the FFplus project: https://www.ffplus-project.eu/ or contact the Montenegrin National Competence Center (NCC Montenegro) directly at luka.filipovic@udg.edu.me or sanja.nikolic@udg.edu.me
NCC Montenegro successfully submitted the proposal No. EHPC-BEN-2023B12-015 High-Resolution Weather Prediction Model for Montenegro, to the EuroHPC Benchmark Access Call, in cooperation with Institute of Hydrometeorology and Seismology of Montenegro (IHMS) on VEGA CPU for the period 15.01.-15.04.2024. The project aimed to leverage the EuroHPC resources to establish and benchmark precise weather forecast models in the complex topography of Montenegro, utilize these models to refine existing meteorological models, and ultimately enhance the accuracy of weather forecasts, particularly for severe weather events.
Simulations used the Weather Research and Forecasting Non-Hydrostatic Mesoscale Model (WRF-NMM) combining advanced numerical techniques with HPC, for studying atmospheric phenomena with high spatial and temporal resolution and providing accurate and efficient simulations of regional weather patterns. Key activities included installing and fine-tuning the model based on previous verification results, preparing input data, running and fine-tuning the model, and analyzing results in the context of weather prediction and parallel computing performance. WRF model is tested on complex Montenegrin terrain on resolutions 0.5km, 1km, 3km, and 5km. Application scalability was tested on up to 8 nodes, running up to 1024 tasks simultaneously. Simulations were executed for different timespans, but results/overall execution time was scaled to one day period to calculate application speedup and efficiency.
Vega HPC has significantly enhanced research capabilities, allowing to achieve results more quickly and with greater accuracy: scalability was successfully tested on 64-512 CPU cores and the model was successfully downscaled to the resolution of 0.5 km. The final report on granted EUROHPC JU Benchmark Access and effective utilization of the VEGA CPU system assigned is submitted.
PAID-T (Price Action Intelligent Detection Trading) is a scalable software solution for investment funds, banks, brokers and digital banks that automatically analyzes markets, executes trades and optimizes trading. The basis of the solution is the awareness of the context when the most potent moment for trading is, the ability to quickly adapt to new market conditions, as well as rigorous rules for risk management.
PAID-T uses mathematical models for statistical data processing (big data), instrument price detection algorithms, machine learning, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to create a unique trading experience.
Using the Lumi supercomputer will help us significantly speed up historical testing. Before using Lumi resources, our tests took an average of 6 days. We now expect to be able to complete testing between 5 and 12 hours depending on the number of parameters used.
The PAID-T has been supported by NCC Montenegro providing technical consultation, HPC systems expertise, and support regarding the application process for EuroHPC Development Call on LUMI (CPU partition). HPC infrastructure access was approved and provided for 12 months.
FoodHub and NCC Montenegro team attended the “International Conference: Global Commodity Chains from a Risk Assessment Perspective” in Berlin, hosted by German federal institute for Risk Assessment BfR. This conference brought together national and international experts in feed and food chains, digitalization, and consumer health protection. It was a fantastic platform to exchange knowledge on innovative techniques and digital solutions for evaluating risks in global commodity chains. The focus was on integrating data and insights about hazards, exposure, and technologies to enhance risk assessment along feed and food chains.
We proudly presented two abstracts in the poster/software session, as part of FoodDecide project:
Andrea Milacic, Amil Orahovac, Luka Filipovic, “Optimizing the Montenegrin Milk Supply Chain: A Data Visualization Approach”
Luka Filipovic, Andrea Milacic, Amil Orahovac, Aleksandra Martinovic, “HoneyChain: Enhancing Honey Production Monitoring System”
You want to optimize your business processes and accelerate innovations?
You need additional computing resources for your R&D&I process?
You need expert support to parallelize or scale your software solutions?
You need access to HPC infrastructure to train AI models?
In the digital era of data explosion, traditional computing methods are struggling to keep pace. High-Performance Computing (HPC) offers powerful solutions, allowing analysis of massive datasets in real-time, running complex simulations, and extraction of valuable insights and actionable results – all within a secure and scalable environment. Big industries and SMEs use HPC systems or Supercomputers to build innovative strategies, techniques, and products. NCC Montenegro serves as a gateway to European supercomputing expertise and infrastructure and supports researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs in their HPC and AI needs. NCC experts provide HPC/HPDA/AI technical consultations, training, and support services, adapted to the business environment and industry domains.
NCC Montenegro service portfolio
You will learn about HPC and AI and get ready to use it! Our HPC expert will assist you with your software development or code parallelization and will guide you through the application process to access the European most powerful supercomputers, significantly reducing your workload and work time. NCC services are free of charge, i.e. subsidized by EuroCC program support for innovation, research, and development.
Contact us for a free consultation and discover how HPC can empower your business, competitiveness and innovation!
NCC Montenegro, in collaboration with Montenegrin National Committee of CIGRE, one of the leading worldwide organizations on electric power systems, successfully organized a collaborative workshop, focusing on opportunities and benefits of HPC and AI complementary technologies in the energy sector, industry best practices and examples of high-fidelity energy metrics modelling. The workshop was attended by approx. 30 participants, academic researchers and industry experts, effectively converging HPC-powered AI research advancements with challenges and opportunities in the energy sector, driven by quality of predictive analytics and sustainability of energy models.
Representatives of HPC National Competence Centre of Montenegro, Sanja Nikolic and Luka Filipovic presented EUROCC2 project, NCC services, EuroHPC infractructure acces, PC4SME assessment tool and research, as well as success stories demonstrating advancements in HPC and AI applications in energy sector.
Mr Darko Krivokapić, Executive Director of the Directorate for Energy Management of the Montenegrin Electric Enterprise (EPCG), presented characteristics of Montenegro energy system and challenges of short- and long-term predictions of energy prices and consumption, depending on Montenegrin energy balance, renewable energy sources, weather conditions and trade dynamics/external risks facing electricity wholesale markets.
Mr Milutin Pavicevic PhD student@University of Donja Gorica and CEO of Alicorn, presented forecasting day-ahead electricity metrics (prices and loads) with different models of artificial neural networks and its accuracy comparison on the given dataset, elaborating on possible commercial implications in energy sector.
Mr Lazar Scekic, Teaching Assistant @University of Montenegro, introduced the audience with its research work on security challenges of electricity infrastructure (GPS spoofing) and reliable AI methods for the protection of electrical power systems against cyberattacks.
Mr Ivan Vujovic, PhD student @University of Belgrade and CEO of Tering, presented models related to prediction of production and consumption of electrical energy in the electrical system by using recurrent neural networks, discussing quality parameters that determine and improve predictive functioning of energy systems.
HPC and AI energy workshop enhanced awareness of NCC Montenegro services and EuroHPC infrastructure resources, available free of charge for the Montenegrin industry for the purpose of research, development and innovation.
Intensive discussion and exchange of opinions, expertise and experience between energy systems’ researchers and practitioners, including meteorological professionals also, open possibilities for the productive collaboration on calibrating computationally-demanding AI/ML models for national energy datasets, to improve their learning accuracy, prediction rates and potential of its commercial utilization in the energy system of Montenegro.
