On April 16, 2025, the UDG hosted a HPC/AI workshop designed for business users and non-technical audience. The workshop provided a concise introduction to HPC and AI technologies emphasizing their growing relevance for accelerating digital transformation, advancing research & development, and strengthening industry competitiveness. Participants gained valuable insights into how supercomputing technologies can be leveraged to accelerate production development and innovation cycles, optimize business operations and decision-making processes.
Key highlights of the workshop included:
A clear and practical overview of both commercial and technical aspects of HPC systems
Real-world use cases showcasing the HPC/AI impact and benefits across industries
Guidance to access Europe’s top-tier supercomputing infrastructure
The session is concluded with optional one-on-one consultations, allowing attendees to explore how advanced technologies like HPC and AI could be integrated into their specific business strategies and innovation ideas.
On April 17, 2025, the University of Donja Gorica successfully hosted the first part of the two-day course “Web Programming with Python Flask and HPC-enabled ML”, organized under the EuroCC Montenegro project. The event attracted over 70 enthusiastic students from various faculties, eager to deepen their knowledge in modern web development and the integration of High-Performance Computing (HPC) with machine learning. The first session focused on the fundamentals of web development using Python Flask, introducing participants to key concepts, tools, and techniques needed to build scalable and interactive web applications.
This was the first part (Day 1) od the short course.
The strong turnout and active participation highlighted the growing interest in the intersection of web technologies and advanced computing. This hands-on course not only provided practical skills but also encouraged students to explore how HPC resources can enhance machine learning workflows within web environments. The second part of the course, which will delve deeper into HPC integration and real-world ML applications, is scheduled to follow soon. The event marks another step forward in building digital competencies and fostering applied computing education in Montenegro.
There was around 75 attendees, mainly BSc and Msc students interested in Web programming and HPC/Ai integration
Mr. Ivan Jovovic was the lecturer today and the course was supported by mr Dejan Babic, mr Elvis Taruh and prof. Tomo Popovic, all in coordination with NCC Montenegro management and coordinators. We continue on 26. April 2025!
As part of its mission to strengthen high-performance computing (HPC) capacities in Montenegro, the National Competence Center (NCC) in HPC recently visited the local IT company Exploring, a growing SME known for its innovative data-driven solutions. The meeting served as an initial consultation aimed at introducing the EUROCC project, and presenting the range of support services provided by NCC Montenegro.
NCC team visited Exploring, an SME IT developer from Podgorica
During the visit, the NCC Montenegro team provided an overview of the EUROCC initiative and the ongoing efforts to enhance digital innovation through HPC, artificial intelligence (AI), and related technologies. The Exploring team was introduced to the NCC self-assessment survey, a tool designed to help companies evaluate their readiness for adopting HPC technologies. In addition, we identified a potential use case to migrate Exploring’s development processes of ML prediction models for BI, which involve handling large datasets and developing prediction models, to the computing infrastructure managed by NCC Montenegro. This move could significantly improve computing performance and scalability for their internal R&D workflows.
The meeting also explored the possibility of:
Launching a proof-of-concept (PoC) analysis to evaluate the benefits of HPC in a real-world scenario tailored to Exploring’s use case;
Joint participation in upcoming open calls and EU-supported innovation programs;
Establishing a long-term collaboration between Exploring and NCC Montenegro to unlock further innovation potential.
This consultation marks an important step toward bridging the gap between academic HPC expertise and the private sector’s innovation goals. NCC Montenegro looks forward to supporting Exploring in its digital transformation journey.
We concluded this consultations with an action plan for the coming months
The paper “Transforming Matrix Problem Solving with Intelligent Tutoring Systems” by E. Trubljanin, E. Taruh, S. Cakic, T. Popovic and L. Filipovic was presented at INFOTEH conference an is published by IEEE Xplore. Researchers from the UDG with support from HPC NCC Montenegro have developed an innovative intelligent tutoring system that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) to revolutionize how students learn matrix operations. This chatbot-based solution combines Optical Character Recognition (EasyOCR) with an advanced natural language processing model (Qwen2-Math-7B-Instruct) to interpret both text and image inputs, enabling it to perform matrix operations such as transposition, addition, and multiplication while providing clear, step-by-step explanations. Supported by the university’s HPC infrastructure, the system ensures high-speed processing and real-time feedback, achieving up to 99% accuracy in matrix recognition from high-quality images. Designed with education in mind, this AI-powered tutor enhances interactivity, understanding, and learning outcomes for students tackling complex linear algebra concepts, and sets the stage for future enhancements like handwritten input recognition and support for more advanced operations.
ABSTRACT – This paper presents the integration of optical character recognition (OCR) and advanced natural language processing (NLP) models for automated handling of matrices derived from images and textual inputs, all combined within an implemented chatbot. The motivation for choosing this topic arises from the practical experiences of the authors gained while working with groups of students who encounter the concept of matrices as part of their academic responsibilities. Through the analysis of their results and classroom interactions, it was observed that many students struggle with this area. This paper presents an innovative approach to enhancing matrix problem-solving by leveraging intelligent tutoring systems supported by High-Performance Computing, aiming to improve learning efficiency and student outcomes. By combining the EasyOCR framework and the Qwen2-Math-7B-Instruct model, operations such as transposition, addition, and multiplication of matrices are enabled. The system supports the input of one or two matrices, allowing the selection of operations through textual or image-based queries. The OCR component extracts numerical data from images, while the NLP model interprets user requests and executes operations accurately. The interface allows the addition of a second matrix image only when necessary, enhancing the system’s intuitiveness and efficiency. The results of the recognition accuracy of the OCR model of image input matrices of different dimensions show a high level of accuracy of 95%, while for 2×2 matrices they reach an accuracy of 99%. This work contributes to the development of AI-powered tools for mathematical operations and holds potential applications in education.
On April 14, 2025, a training session titled “Introduction to High Performance Computing (HPC)” was held at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Montenegro. The event gathered faculty members and young researchers from various scientific fields.
The training was led by Dr. Milutin Radonjić, NCC Montenegro team member, who introduced participants to the fundamental concepts of high performance computing, including HPC architectures, supercomputer components, and current applications across science, engineering, healthcare, and finance.
NCC team organized a training session at the Faculty for Electrical Engineering
Key topics included:
The historical development of HPC – from early mainframes to modern exascale systems,
The architecture of supercomputers, including CPUs, GPUs, interconnects, and memory,
Challenges in scalability, energy efficiency, and data security,
Opportunities to access HPC resources through the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking initiatives, including systems such as LUMI, Leonardo, MareNostrum 5, and others.
Participants were also introduced to services of National Competence Centre for HPC, and were guided through application procedures for EuroHPC Development, Benchmark, and Regular Access Calls.
This training represents an important step toward integrating HPC into local research initiatives and strengthening collaboration with the European supercomputing ecosystem.
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Fain Tech, a startup specializing in computer vision, with the support of the NCC Montenegro team, which is implementing the EuroCC2/EuroCC4SEE project, has successfully gained access to Leonardo BOOSTER HPC resources for a period of three months through the EuroHPC Benchmark public call. This access will support research on the Enfield: European Lighthouse to Manifest Trustworthy and Green AI project, aimed at developing advanced models for defect detection on PCBs.
Another SME to utilise European HPC resources
With these resources, the team will focus on optimizing neural networks to create solutions that perform effectively even with limited data, minimizing the risk of overfitting. The team will demonstrate their capability to effectively use advanced computing resources, contributing to the development of reliable and sustainable technologies in industrial processes.
