Zabljak hosted successful international workshop on HPC/AI industry applications

During 28th international IT IEEE conference in Zabljak, Montenegro, the EuroCC2 HPC/HPDA/AI Workshop gathered together presenters from 6 NCCs and 5 companies providing a brief overview on more than 20 PoCs, use cases, and success stories, driven by computationally-intensive demand and innovative application portfolio. The workshop was attended by almost 140 participants from academia and industry (up to 60 joining virtually and another 80 in person), who had an opportunity to gain valuable insights and deepen their understanding of HPC benefits within industrial, interdisciplinary and international context.

The workshop was opened by Panayiota Katsamba’s presentation on NCC Cyprus’ strategic framework for industry steering, emphasizing the importance of cohesive pitching and managing companies’ expectations through the industry scout concept which resulted in numerous success stories.


Colleagues from Slovenia, Mrs Tina Crnigoj Marc from Arctur d.o.o. presented an HPC4SME automated tool designed for assessing Cloud HPC readiness among the companies, while Saso Knez, CEO of AFormX, shared insights on advanced aviation projects, talking about challenges on light aircraft configuration that were successfully addressed by HPC resources and simulations.

Three Montenegrin IT companies presented their AI-driven or HPC-supported industry cases. Ivan Boskovic, CEO of ITAS introduced us to their software solutions and business perspective in integrating LegalTech and FinTech opportunities. Ivan Soc, CEO of FiveGroup, discussed about EdTech tools and services, and ambitions to enhance classroom learning through VR/AR/Gaming-based experiences.. Marko Lekic, CTO of Fleka presented personalized banking software solutions, SKEN App – personal expense tracker, and ML/NLP-based classification algorithm developed with the support of HPC expert Luka Filipovic from NCC Montenegro, which enables automatic categorization of consumer transactions into spending categories.

At the beginning of the second part of the workshop, Ozlem Sari demonstrated NCC Turkey’s industry excellence, through well-structured industry interaction, PoC evaluation and HPC onboarding process, resulting in 12 Success Stories in various technology and industry domains.

Andreea Dinu and Sebastian Murau from Romania shared their NCC experience on opportunities and challenges in fostering productive industry interaction, elaborating further on use cases and study cases. Following them, Andreea Moga from the Netherlands successfully presented their NCC industry services, engagement and customer journey process, followed by inspirational PoC/use cases including the development of AI models based on satellite data for soil nutrient monitoring/regenerative agriculture or AI models based on drone data to calculate oil spills surface and thickness.

The workshop concluded with Petre Lameski’s presentation, highlighting HPC use cases that promote industry collaboration within NCC North Macedonia: Scalable Electricity Meters Data Processing with 42Dynamics, Voucher Generation case with Interctec and Automated Transcription Tool with Hate Speech Analysis use case for Agency for Audio ad Audiovisual Media Services.

HPC and AI Workshop

NCC Montenegro and NCC Spain, collaborators at the EuroCC project, organized the “HPC and AI Workshop” designed for academia, scholars, researchers who are interested in learning how to use Artificial Intelligence and High-performance Computing in real case scenarios. This has been achieved through five lectures featuring educators from Spain and Montenegro presenting successful case studies:

Borja Perez Pavon, from Universidad de Cantabria, talked about HPC systems and highlighted they are available for different research projects by accessing various free access calls.

Ivan Jovovic, AI researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Donja Gorica explained from the use of multiple GPUs to handle large data sets to the cons and pros of data parallelism.

Stevan Cakic is a PhD student at the University of Donja Gorica, talked about the application of AI and HPC in agriculture, delving into deep learning and high-performance computing.

Ahmad Al Mughrabi, active researcher and multidisciplinary predoctoral scholar at the Universitat de Barcelona, discussed the applications of HPC and generative AI, acknowledging certain challenges that need consideration in the implementation of HPC in real-case scenarios.

Dejan Babic, a PhD candidate at the University of Donja Gorica presented the concept AI and HPC use cases in medicine.

AIMHiGH project presenation at NCC Cyprus Industry Day event

The Computation-based Science and Technology Research Center (CaSToRC) of The Cyprus Institute hosted a landmark “Industry Day” on Tuesday, January 16, 2024, organized within the framework of the EUROCC2 project.

During the Industry Day event , a representative from DigitalSmart Stevan Čakić from Montenegro presented the AIMHiGH project in a segment titled “Another success story from a past collaboration between industry and research.” The focus of the presentation was on how the project integrates high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) into poultry farming, creating innovative solutions for the agricultural sector. The collaboration, part of the H2020 initiative and the FF4EuroHPC application experiments, was highlighted as a prime example of successful partnership between industry and academia, driving forward technological advancement in agriculture. This concise presentation underscored the significance of collaborative efforts in bringing about cutting-edge innovations in traditional sectors.

NCC Montenegro: Meeting at UoM

University of Montenegro, NCC Montenegro’s affiliated partner, organized a EuroCC2 project meeting on December 13th, gathering deans, professors, and researchers from its Engineering and Science (Mathematics, Biology, Physics) Faculties, interested in HPC-powered research, development and innovation opportunities.

Professors Bozo Krstajic, UoM and Tomo Popovic, UDG provided introductory session on EuroCC2 project and joint UDG and UoM activities. Professor Luka Filipovic presented NCC Montenegro training activities, services and industry success stories.

The engaging discussion allowed academic participants to gain valuable insights into: HPC practical applications across various research domains, NCC infrastructure opportunities with Yotta Advanced Computing and application process for accessing EUROHPC resources. The next steps will be defined through HPC/AI-aligned research and project initiatives, and supported cooperation with public administration and big industry.

HPC4SME self-evaluation tool – Are you ready to use HPC?

NCC Slovenia/Arctur d.o.o led and CASTIEL supported Task Force HPC4SME that successfully mobilised 17 NCCs within EuroCC2 footprint, in joint effort to upgrade HPC4SME Automated Assessment Tool for evaluation of Cloud HPC readiness of the European companies.

Task Force activities were focused on content update (questions, answers, info fields, report, translation), fine tuning of MADM (Multi- Attribute Decision -Making Model), beta testing with SMEs and service upgrade to the new AAT system.

The enhanced HPC4SME Tool was formally introduced during CASTIEL webinar for the Industry Working Group by Arctur team, focusing on SME’s evaluation benefits and supporting activities on NCCs market intelligence, competence mapping and industry steering process.

HPC4SME Automated Assessment Tool is already available at NCC Montenegro website https://eurocc.udg.edu.me/hpc4sme-assessment-tool/, providing an opportunity for Montenegrin companies to discover IF and HOW they can benefit from supercomputing services.

Joint workshop with AmCham

Within the scope of focused communication and productive industry interactions, NCC Montenegro is organizing joint workshop with business association AmCham (American Chamber of Commerce) on 17.11.2023. Industry workshop will provide Montenegrin companies with:

  • Brief introduction to HPC systems, technologies, applications and benefits,
  • Presentation on HPC success stories and best practices from various industries,
  • Demonstration of the HPC4SME tool to evaluate companies’ HPC readiness
  • Presentation of HPC activities of NCC Montenegro,
  • Networking opportunities and follow-up consultations with HPC experts

We believe that this workshop will increase awareness on HPC&AI opportunities, provide valuable insights and inspirational use cases to the members and partners of AmCham Montenegro, enabling them to stay updated with the latest technologies and industry trends, and to discover supercomputing power to enhance their business and competitiveness.

The Agenda of upcoming event :

HPC opportunities for financial industry services

Representative of NCC Montenegro, Sanja Nikolic participated in the Round Table “Montenegrin Finance and Internationalization”, organized by Montenegrin Academy of Science and Art. On this event, topics related to the international competitiveness, financial opportunities and fast-paced digitalization with HPC&AI, were lively discussed with representatives of academia, banking sector, investment & trading institutions.
Mrs. Nikolic presented technical and commercial aspects of HPC systems and emphasized HPC/AI powered use cases in the financial services industry. EuroCC/EuroCC2 supercomputing opportunities and NCC Montenegro activities related to HPC/AI study programs, trainings and industry success stories were also elaborated.

Event in media :