On Tuesday, 15 September 2026, Gong, Ostrava’s multifunctional venue, became a meeting point for the Czech AI community. The sold-out CERNA.AI Festival attracted 2,200 visitors and featured a programme with 100 speakers across seven stages, more than 20 workshops, expert panel discussions and an accompanying programme. IT4Innovations, together with the LUMI AI Factory, was one of the festival’s co-organisers.
The LUMI AI Factory organised the programme on the purple stage, where an afternoon session dedicated to AI Factories explored the role of these centres in advancing artificial intelligence in Europe. The session opened with Per Öster from the Finnish CSC, who introduced the concept of AI Factories and their role in the European AI ecosystem. He also presented upcoming additions to Europe’s supercomputing infrastructure – the LUMI-AI system and the LUMI-IQ quantum computer.
Václav Svatoň from IT4Innovations also took to the stage, presenting an AI voicebot for the 112 emergency line together with Petr Schwarz from Brno University of Technology. Ada Böhm concluded the session by exploring the link between quantum computing and artificial intelligence. The purple stage programme also featured other scientists and experts from the Czech AI Factory, including Kateřina Veverová, Jan Hajič and Petr Kadera.
IT4Innovations also featured in other parts of the festival programme. Tomáš Martinovič led the morning workshop “Run your own AI models on a supercomputer without technical barriers”, which was fully booked. He showed participants how to upload data and run jobs on the Karolina supercomputer.
In his presentation, Jan Tyl from Alpha Industries highlighted the company’s collaboration with the LUMI AI Factory and praised the Czech team's support in facilitating access to the LUMI supercomputer. Marianna Barčák Hajná, AI Transformation Leader at Vectorama, also shared her practical experience of the support available to companies from the LUMI AI Factory. She took part in the panel discussion “How can AI Factories support companies?” alongside Vít Vondrák, Director of IT4Innovations. He explained how the LUMI AI Factory and the Czech AI Factory support startups and companies in leveraging artificial intelligence, supercomputing resources, and related services. Vít Vondrák also took part as a speaker in the grand finale on the main white stage.
Throughout the day, visitors could stop by the LUMI AI Factory stand, where the IT4Innovations team discussed potential cooperation with dozens of interested visitors in areas including supercomputing, data support, training and the legal aspects of AI. The team also presented opportunities to use the shared workspace at the newly opened IT4I AI Factory Hub.
