Category: Industry collaboration

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HPC and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: From Strategy to Clinical Impact

Podgorica, 13 February 2026 – The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montenegro hosted a regional symposium dedicated to the application of High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare and medical research.

The event was organized by NCC Montenegro, in collaboration with the Faculty for Information Systems and Technologies (UDG) and the Faculty of Medicine (UoM), within the framework of the EuroCC2 and EuroCC4SEE projects, with additional support from the AI-AGE research project.

Bringing together approximately 20 participants from healthcare institutions, academia, innovative companies, and regional partners from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the symposium aimed to strengthen collaboration and advance the adoption of AI and HPC technologies in the health sector.

From Vision to Implementation

The programme combined strategic presentations, regional cooperation sessions, and technical demonstrations, creating a comprehensive overview of the current state of HPC and AI in healthcare.

NCC Montenegro presented Montenegro’s role as a national reference point for HPC, High-Performance Data Analytics (HPDA), and AI development. The presentation traced the entire pipeline—from clinical and biomedical data collection to AI model development and HPC-accelerated deployment.

A central message of the event was clear: HPC in healthcare is not merely about computational speed. It enables rigorous validation, reproducibility, and scalable deployment of AI models in real clinical environments.

Use cases discussed during the symposium included radiology, digital pathology, cardiology, genomics, ICU monitoring, and public health forecasting

AI-AGE: Advancing Research on Ageing

A dedicated session focused on the AI-AGE project, which explores retinal fundus imaging as a potential biomarker for accelerated biological ageing.

The interdisciplinary team presented research results based on UK Biobank data and datasets collected in Montenegro. Findings indicate that the complexity of retinal microvascular networks may decline more rapidly in patients with chronic diseases, highlighting potential applications in early diagnosis and monitoring.

Speakers emphasized the importance of careful model validation, addressing training bias, and ensuring responsible clinical deployment. The discussion also highlighted the potential of EuroHPC resources to further strengthen research capacity and computational scalability

Technical Showcase: AI Solutions Already in Practice

One of the most dynamic parts of the symposium was the Technical Showcase, where companies from Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina presented concrete AI and HPC-enabled healthcare solutions.

Among the showcased innovations were:

  • AI-powered colon cancer detection in digital pathology using deep learning on high-resolution histopathology slides
  • AI-driven IoT platforms supporting clinical decision-making and patient management
  • AI systems for Alzheimer’s disease care, including predictive digital twins and multimodal reasoning tools
  • HPC-supported computational simulations accelerating pharmaceutical drug development

A particularly valuable component of the session was the sharing of experiences from companies that successfully applied for and received EuroHPC computing resources. These examples demonstrated how access to supercomputing infrastructure directly enhances model development, testing, and product readiness.

Strengthening Regional Cooperation

The symposium also included a regional twinning workshop between NCC Montenegro and NCC Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The session focused on joint strategies for stakeholder engagement, cross-border resource sharing, and knowledge transfer. The discussion confirmed that the twinning model is an effective mechanism for strengthening the South-East European HPC ecosystem and facilitating access to European supercomputing infrastructure.

Such cooperation is particularly important as the region prepares for the next phase of European HPC initiatives and increasing alignment with the EU AI Act and broader digital strategies.

Addressing Systemic Challenges

The event concluded with an interactive panel discussion titled “Orchestrating the Ecosystem.” Participants addressed key challenges facing AI adoption in healthcare, including:

  • The healthcare data gap and fragmentation
  • Regulatory complexity, particularly in the context of the EU AI Act
  • The need for stronger partnerships between industry, academia, and healthcare institutions

While AI model architectures continue to mature rapidly, participants agreed that the primary bottlenecks lie in data heterogeneity, evaluation standards, and deployment constraints rather than algorithmic limitations.

Healthcare representatives acknowledged the growing importance of HPC and AI in medical research but emphasized the need to improve institutional readiness for strategic and sustainable adoption.

A Strategic Step Forward

The symposium concluded with a shared commitment to:

  • Position AI and HPC as strategic priorities in healthcare innovation
  • Continue expanding infrastructure and access to HPC resources
  • Invest in skills development and capacity building
  • Strengthen regional collaboration across South-East Europe

The event marked an important step in connecting research excellence, industrial innovation, and clinical practice—demonstrating that HPC-enabled AI in healthcare is no longer a future concept, but an emerging regional reality.

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DeepMark Approved GPU Resources through AI Factory Playground Access

DeepMark is a deep-tech startup developing learning-based watermarking and provenance technology for AI-generated content. It previously used EuroHPC JU resources after receiving one year of access to the Leonardo Booster partition through a Development call. DeepMark leveraged these resources to advance next-generation watermarking research and benchmarking.

Deepmark

As the research deepened, the need for additional compute grew. Following consultations with the NCC Montenegro team at the University of Montenegro, DeepMark applied for GPU resources via the AI Factory Playground Access.

DeepMark has been awarded 5,000 GPU hours on the Leonardo Booster partition, granted for three months. This allocation will support work on robust, learning-based watermarking for AI-generated content—improving resilience to real-world edits and AI transformations and strengthening provenance and authenticity at scale. With this new allocation, DeepMark will expand its experiments and validation under real-world constraints.

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Uhura Solutions Awarded Extension and Additional HPC Resources on Leonardo Supercomputer

The Uhura Solutions project “Generative AI Intelligent Process Automation Platform” has received a positive evaluation and has been granted an extension, including 4,500 node hours on the Leonardo BOOSTER HPC system for a 12-month period. 

The additional HPC resources will support Uhura Solutions’ ongoing research and development in advanced Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) tailored for the financial sector. Leveraging Leonardo’s state-of-the-art computing capabilities, the project will scale experiments from smaller open-source models to larger LLMs, enabling deeper research into optimization techniques such as parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT), quantization, pruning, and model alignment.

Leonardo HPC

The Generative AI Intelligent Process Automation Platform integrates fine-tuned LLMs, low-code development, and process automation workflows to significantly improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer experience in financial services. A key differentiator of the platform is its focus on industry-specific language and context, supported by carefully curated private datasets with strong attention to data quality, privacy, and compliance.

This extension and access to Leonardo BOOSTER represent a major milestone for the project. The additional computational power allows company to push the boundaries of financial-domain AI and accelerate the delivery of scalable, production-ready solutions for the European market

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EuroHPC JU Call for Proposals: Enabling AI-Driven Scientific Discovery Across Europe

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has opened a call for proposals supporting AI-driven scientific research and collaborative EU projects that require large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) resources.

This access mode is designed for researchers, academic institutions, public sector bodies, and industry partners involved in EU-funded or nationally funded R&I projects, where Artificial Intelligence is a core enabler of scientific discovery—including machine learning, foundation models, generative AI, and large language models applied to real scientific challenges.

Available supercomputers to apply for (the resources shown in node hours)

What does the call offer?

Selected projects can receive access to Europe’s leading supercomputers (such as GPU-accelerated EuroHPC systems) for training, testing, and scaling advanced AI models. The call runs on a continuous basis with multiple cut-off dates, allowing flexible submission throughout the year.

Why it matters

Many AI-for-science use cases exceed the capabilities of local infrastructure. This call lowers the barrier to:

  • large-scale AI model training,
  • data-intensive scientific workflows,
  • cross-border collaboration using shared European HPC resources.

Support for Montenegrin applicants

NCC Montenegro actively supports Montenegrin researchers, institutions, and companies in preparing and submitting applications to this call.

NCC Montenegro can help with:

  • assessing project eligibility and fit with the call,
  • estimating HPC and GPU resource needs,
  • structuring proposals and impact sections,
  • connecting applicants with relevant EuroHPC systems and expertise.

If you are based in Montenegro and considering applying, we strongly encourage you to contact us early in the preparation process. Learn more at [link]

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HPC & AI in Healthcare: From Research to Clinical Practice in Montenegro and SEE

High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly moving beyond research laboratories into real clinical environments. Across Montenegro and the SEE region, promising AI solutions have been developed for medical image analysis, biomarker detection, and predictive diagnostics. The critical challenge today is ensuring their structured transition from research prototypes to validated, deployable tools within healthcare systems.

Please contact us for attendance, limited number of seats

This event addresses precisely that transition. It focuses on how HPC infrastructure, interdisciplinary collaboration, and coordinated ecosystem support can accelerate the integration of AI into everyday clinical practice. Particular attention will be given to available computational capacities, real-life use cases, and pathways toward sustainable deployment.

The event is organized as a joint initiative between NCC Montenegro and NCC Bosnia and Herzegovina, within the broader framework of EuroCC 2 and EuroCC4SEE. It also represents a form of cross-project pollination with the AI-AGE project, demonstrating how research-driven innovation can evolve into applied healthcare solutions through regional cooperation.

Collaboration between NCC Monteengro and NCC Bosnia and Herzegovina

Researchers, clinicians, innovators, and industry partners are invited to join the discussion, exchange expertise, and contribute to shaping the next steps for HPC- and AI-driven healthcare across Southeast Europe. The event is scheduled for Friday, 13 Feb 2026. Please contact us for further details.

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Enhancing BSc Education through AI and HPC: Implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Course

As part of the ongoing activities of the National Competence Centre for High-Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence in Montenegro (HPC NCC Montenegro), a new undergraduate course entitled Artificial Intelligence has been successfully implemented during the current academic year. The course was delivered to students of the Faculty for Information Systems and Technologies (FIST) as well as the Faculty of Applied Sciences – Electrical Engineering and Computer Science programme, further strengthening the AI and HPC components within undergraduate curricula.

AI Education Bridging Academia and Industry

The course was designed as an introductory yet comprehensive overview of fundamental concepts, methods, and applications of artificial intelligence, aiming to provide students with a solid theoretical foundation alongside essential practical skills. The focus was placed on machine learning, data analysis and processing, decision-making algorithms, and the role of AI in digital transformation and real-world problem solving. In addition, ethical challenges and societal implications of AI technologies were explicitly addressed. The course content and learning outcomes were aligned with contemporary academic and industry standards, including hands-on use of tools recommended by the industry experts.

A distinctive feature of the course was its close collaboration with industry partners, fully aligned with the objectives of the EuroCC-2 and EuroCC4SEE projects, which promote strong links between academia, industry, and the HPC ecosystem. Representatives from Alicorn, BixBit, Inovativa, and DigitalSmart actively participated in the course delivery, contributing through guest lectures and weekly discussions with students. This collaboration allowed students to gain first-hand insights into how AI and HPC technologies are applied in real industrial environments.

Through direct interaction with industry professionals, students discussed concrete use cases of artificial intelligence in areas such as data-driven decision making, process automation, intelligent systems development, and scalable AI solutions supported by HPC infrastructures. These exchanges significantly enriched the learning experience, fostering critical thinking, practical understanding of market needs, and awareness of real-world constraints and opportunities.

The implementation of the Artificial Intelligence course represents a concrete example of how EuroCC initiatives contribute to the systematic enhancement of undergraduate curricula with AI and HPC content, while simultaneously strengthening cooperation with industry. In this way, students are not only equipped with fundamental technical knowledge but are also introduced to the broader European HPC and AI ecosystem, gaining a clear perspective on the role of AI and high-performance computing in modern research, innovation, and industry.

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EuroCC4SEE Forum on HPC/AI-Enabled Business Innovation & PoC Demonstrations

Short video from the event

On 13–14 December, NCC Montenegro hosted the EuroCC4SEE Forum dedicated to business innovation supported by High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The event brought together representatives from academia, industry, the public sector, and the startup ecosystem, with the aim of strengthening national capacities and supporting Montenegro’s digital transformation.

Welcome note from NCC Montenegro – prof. Bozo Krstajic
We organized networking activities during the breaks

During the two-day program, participants explored practical applications of HPC and AI through Proof-of-Concept demonstrations in the fields of energy, agriculture, health, and mobility, alongside discussions on innovation policies, MLOps approaches, skills development, and business–academia collaboration.

Discussions were focused on AI/HPC driven innovation in business and PoC demonstrators
PoC presentations were based on acamia-industry collaboration

The forum also highlighted the importance of regional and European cooperation, EU funding opportunities, and future activities within the EuroCC4SEE network, contributing to the strengthening of Montenegro’s position within the regional HPC/AI ecosystem. A proceedings booklet with brief elaborations of all covered topics will be made available on the project website.

Group photo from the event
Click to open the Abstract book
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