IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava (https://www.it4i.cz/en/about/about-it4i) is a leading research, development, and innovation centre active in the field of high-performance computing (HPC) and data analysis (HPDA). IT4Innovations operates the most powerful supercomputing systems in the Czech Republic, which are provided to Czech and foreign research teams from both academia and industry. Together with the CESNET and CERIT-SC institutions, IT4Innovations constitutes e-INFRA CZ, a strategic research infrastructure of the Czech Republic.
IT4Innovations currently operates four supercomputers — Anselm (94 TFlop/s, installed in the summer of 2013), Salomon (2 PFlop/s, installed in the summer of 2015), Barbora (849 TFlop/s, installed in the autumn of 2019) and a special system for artificial intelligence computation NVIDIA DGX-2 (130 TFlop/s and 2 PFlop/s in AI, installed in spring 2019). A petascale EURO_IT4I system with computing power approximately 15.2 PFlop/s will be installed at the center in 2021 as part of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking.
The key research areas of IT4Innovations include big data processing and analysis, machine learning, development of parallel scalable algorithms, solution of computationally demanding engineering problems, advanced visualization, virtual reality, modelling for nanotechnologies, and material design.
IT4Innovations research activities are executed across 5 laboratories:
- Parallel Algorithms Research Lab,
- Advanced Data Analysis and Simulations Lab,
- Modelling for Nanotechnologies Lab,
- Big Data Analysis Lab,
- Infrastructure Research Lab.
IT4Innovations also has a strong focus on cooperation with industrial enterprises, earning IT4Innovation the status of the Digital Innovation Hub registered at the European Commission level and is a member of DIHnet EU, the European network of digital innovation hubs. In this context, IT4Innovations has developed a partnership with the Moravian-Silesian Innovation Centre Ostrava and in 2020 the Digital Innovation Hub Ostrava has been established.
In September 2017, TDTU and ECC signed the Agreement on the Implementation of the doctoral study programme in part-time with VSB TU Ostrava and IT4Innovations. The program's PhD. students are engaged in intensive training courses on HPC, HPDA and AI during their study and research at VSB TU Ostrava.