IT4Innovations unveils five research flagships centred on supercomputing, AI, and quantum technologies

The IT4Innovations international scientific panel has selected five projects with the highest scientific and socio-economic impact. “These flagship projects reflect our centre’s scientific strategy and directly align with national and European research priorities. Each of these projects has clearly defined scientific objectives, a firmly established Strategic Plan Implementation Scheme for the period 2026–2028, and is backed by strong interdisciplinary research teams,” says Tomáš Kozubek, IT4Innovations Scientific Director

MERIC Suite is a set of tools for monitoring and optimising the energy consumption of supercomputers. “It is deployed on both the Czech Karolina and the Portuguese Deucalion supercomputers. By optimising hardware operations, we have managed to reduce Karolina’s energy consumption by hundreds of MWh per year. We will continue to develop these tools to further increase the energy efficiency of the IT4Innovations computing infrastructure,” explains Ondřej Vysocký, Senior Researcher at the Infrastructure Research Lab. MERIC is also part of broader European initiatives focused on energy-efficient supercomputing, including AI Factories and the international SEANERGYS project.

CADENCE will create an interdisciplinary living lab for materials and drug delivery system design using supercomputers, machine learning, and quantum computing. “To efficiently design new materials with targeted properties, we will combine computer simulations, data-driven predictions, and experimental feedback. To store large-scale data and automate the development of new empirical potentials, we will also use the ADAMS4SIMS tool, which we developed through international collaboration and thanks to the European EXA4MIND project. Indeed, broad domestic and international collaboration will be one of the tools for achieving our objectives. Our long-term objective is to create a scalable knowledge base that will accelerate the materials and drug delivery systems design. Our vision is to make CADENCE one of the European leaders in this field,” adds Michal Otyepka, Head of the Modelling for Nanotechnologies Lab.

The LEXIS Platform strengthens Europe’s leadership in data-driven research by combining supercomputing systems, artificial intelligence, and cloud and quantum technologies. The aim is to enable researchers to design and run complex scientific workflows across different computing and data infrastructures through a unified orchestration layer, providing a seamless experience as if working with a single system.

The technologies developed under this initiative simplify access to supercomputing resources, foster the development of advanced artificial intelligence tools, and also encompass the entire lifecycle management of AI models – from their design and training to practical deployment. “Simultaneously, we aim for their integration with the LUMI AI Factory and Czech AI Factory infrastructures, enabling the expansion and synergistic interconnection of the services provided. These activities are also part of the EuroHPC JU Federated Platform (EFP), which connects European supercomputers and provides tools for their effective use across various scientific and application domains. The initiative also includes activities related to the FLOREON+ system, which enables monitoring, modelling, prediction, and support in crisis management,” explains Jan Martinovič, Head of the Advanced Data Analysis and Simulations Lab. 

The AURORA project will introduce a new approach to solving complex physical problems by combining high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence, synthetic 3D data, and advanced visualisation. Its objective is to develop and systematically validate AI models that will significantly accelerate or partially replace computationally intensive simulation methods. “AURORA will focus primarily on situations where sufficient experimental data is lacking, utilising automated learning from simulated and generated scenarios, including leveraging synthetic 3D data. These approaches will enable more efficient development of digital twins, faster decision-making, and a better understanding of complex technical processes,” says Tomáš Brzobohatý, Senior Researcher at the Parallel Algorithms Research Lab. The project will result in shorter development cycles, reduced costs, and broader application of artificial intelligence in industrial practice, particularly where traditional calculations are too slow or costly.

HPQC4F will bridge classical and quantum computing, paving the way for more accurate models and faster problem-solving with direct implications for the energy sector, industry, and other technological applications. “We will create a comprehensive library of validated use cases from academia and industry that leverage the synergy of supercomputers and quantum computers to solve challenging problems. These will be specific scenarios and case studies demonstrating how classical high-performance computing can be combined with quantum algorithms to complement each other. The examples will include, among other things, advanced computational methods and data analytics, including selected machine learning methods for predicting the properties of materials used in energy and industrial facilities. The library will also include applications in the areas of risk assessment, energy grid optimisation, insurance, improving the efficiency of supercomputing infrastructure, quantum dynamics, quantum algorithms for dynamic modal decomposition, and quantum biological modelling,” says Marek Lampart, Head of the Quantum Computing Lab.
Supercomputers will ensure large-scale data processing and complex simulations, while quantum computing will accelerate the most computationally intensive parts of problems. This hybrid approach will thus enable the effective solution of problems that are difficult to tackle using classical or quantum computations alone. “These hybrid computations will find application, for instance, in developing interatomic potentials of magnetic materials both below and above the critical temperature,” explains Dominik Legut, the project’s co-investigator and Senior Researcher at the Modelling for Nanotechnologies Lab.

IT4Innovations’ five flagships reflect scientific excellence, international collaboration, and the potential to deliver breakthrough results for both Czech and European research.