This year, representatives of IT4Innovations actively participated for the first time in a prestigious Asian conference focused on supercomputing and high-performance computing — SCA/HPCAsia 2026. The event took place in Osaka, Japan, and attracted 2,500 participants from around the world. The programme focused on HPC, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies. Keynote speakers included experts from the United States, Japan, and Europe. The conference also featured an exhibition section showcasing 100 institutions, companies, and research projects, including six innovative start-ups.
The Czech supercomputing centre made a strong impression at the conference thanks to Karina Pešatová, who appeared as an invited speaker in the thematic session The Human Algorithm: Designing the Future with HPC. In her talk, she presented European educational initiatives in which the centre is involved. She also co-organised a community discussion session in the Birds of a Feather format titled Super(computing)heroes – a panel composed of women working across different areas of HPC, aimed at providing role models and inspiration for younger colleagues.
IT4Innovations was also strongly represented in the poster session, where research focusing on the energy efficiency of high-performance computing, drug development, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence was presented.
Tomáš Kozubek presented the MERIC solution — a software tool focused on the energy-efficient operation of HPC systems, helping to save megawatts of electrical energy. At the conference, Jan Martinovič introduced the LEXIS Platform, which provides academics, small and medium-sized enterprises, and industrial partners with easy and secure access to supercomputing, cloud, quantum, and AI resources. Paulo Silva presented research supported by the AVITHRAPID project, which uses the LEXIS Platform to accelerate virtual screening in the development of new pharmaceuticals. Vít Vondrák and Kateřina Slaninová presented the CLARA Testbed infrastructure, which connects HPC and quantum technologies to accelerate research into the brain and neurodegenerative diseases. David Číž attracted attention with two research posters — QA-gated Ensemble Framework for Robust AI and Easy Molecular Dynamics on HPC with EXA4MIND — focusing on the reliability of AI models and the simplification of molecular simulations. Martin Golasowski presented the pan-European project OpenWebSearch.eu and federated HPC workflows for large-scale web indexing.
IT4Innovations was also part of the SCA/HPCAsia 2026 exhibition section. For the OpenWebSearch.EU project, we organised a booth where visitors could learn about the European infrastructure for web search and become familiar with the open web index. The booth also featured a presentation of the previously mentioned LEXIS Platform, whose components will contribute to the development of a federated platform for the pan-European EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. Visitors to SCA/HPCAsia 2026 also had the opportunity, through videos, to take a look behind the scenes of our supercomputing centre and learn about the Karolina supercomputer and the VLQ quantum computer.
"IT4Innovations’ participation in global conferences allows us to strengthen international partnerships and increase our visibility and influence beyond the European continent. The SCA/HPCAsia conference impressed us not only with its very broad range of scientific talks and workshops, focused on topics such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and the integration of HPC and quantum computing, but also with its unique audience from Asia and Australia. We met with several manufacturers of HPC, AI, and quantum technologies, as well as with stakeholders interested in our research and development results, which opens up new opportunities for collaboration,” summarises Vít Vondrák, Director of IT4Innovations.
