The Ministry of Industry and Trade has announced the winner of the national call for European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH), which, together with European partners, will support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and public administration institutions in the wider integration of digital technologies into manufacturing, commerce, and public services. The Digital Innovation Hub Ostrava (DIH Ostrava) is one of the winners.

Many companies in the Czech Republic have enormous potential and bring great innovations to the market. “In areas with high added value as well as in robotics, Czech companies and start-ups now have much to offer the world. With its strong industrial and scientific base, as well as a number of top research centres and research infrastructures, the Czech Republic is ready for the digital age," said Karel Havlíček, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade. However, SMEs generally do not have the financial resources to devote to verification or potential deployment of digital technologies. To this end, digital innovation hubs have emerged in the past to support the digitalisation of SMEs.

Digitalisation is critical for ensuring the the future competitiveness of enterprises. The Ministry of Industry and Trade considers the establishment of European Digital Innovation Centres to be the key to the development of Europe's digital ecosystem, and has organised a national call to this end. Six of the ten participating candidates have been selected to apply for support from the Digital Europe programme. “The European Digital Innovation Centres will develop and test products before final production and marketing, provide services and capacities related to the use of the available digital infrastructure, and will generally support the region in building an innovative ecosystem and cooperation,” explains Petr Očko, the Deputy Minister for Digitalisation and Innovation.

DIH Ostrava is among the candidates for being a European Digital Innovation Centre. This hub was prepared by IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre at VSB-Technical University of Ostrava (VSB-TUO) together with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of VSB-TUO and the Moravian-Silesian Innovation Centre Ostrava. The hub aims to help enterprises, primarily from the Moravian-Silesian Region, take advantage of the opportunities offered by digitalisation, including financial advantages for selected types of services such as access to supercomputing capacity. “We are very pleased that the Ministry of Industry and Trade has selected DIH Ostrava as one of the winners, giving us the opportunity to apply for support from the Digital Europe programme. Our goal is to promote the adoption and utilisation of advanced digital innovations in both enterprises and in wider society. From the outset and in the future, we would like to establish cooperation with other enterprises with innovation potential and provide them with some of the possible support through our hub. For example, this could include the possibility of conducting a digital audit, using capacity to analyse company data, and creating a digital twin of a production process or product," says Martin Duda, DIH Ostrava Project Coordinator.