Category: General

ITER: Research, Innovation, and Sustainability

ITER is one of the most prominent technological institutes in Spain, with a strong focus on renewable energy sources, green technologies, and innovative solutions for a sustainable future. The center plays a key role in bridging science and industry, creating conditions for the development of solutions with significant societal and environmental impact.

Part of this research ecosystem is Teide HPC, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Spain.

Teide HPC: A Symbol of the Union Between Nature and Computational Power

The Teide HPC supercomputer is housed in a seemingly unremarkable building in the industrial area of Tenerife. However, inside lies a technological gem capable of tackling the most demanding scientific and technical computations.

It is named after Mount Teide, the highest peak in Spain, whose symbolism is reflected in the graphic design of the facility itself. This design expresses the connection between the forces of nature and the power of computation – perfectly capturing the mission of the center.

Teide HPC is used not only for research in the field of renewable energy but also supports a wide range of multidisciplinary projects — from bioinformatics and artificial intelligence to simulations in energy, transportation, and climate science.

First Steps Toward Cooperation Between Slovakia and Spain

Lucia Malíčková’s visit represents an important step in strengthening international ties between Slovak and Spanish partners. During discussions with ITER’s leadership, several potential areas of cooperation were identified — including knowledge exchange, participation in joint research projects, expert mobility, and opportunities in education and training for HPC users.

The representative of NSCC and NCC also presented the Slovak high-performance computing ecosystem, as well as the services it offers to Slovak users from the academic, public, and industrial sectors.

An Inspiring Visit with a Vision for the Future

“This visit was incredibly inspiring,” said Lucia Malíčková upon her return. “I’m glad we had the opportunity to establish contact with such an important partner as ITER and Teide HPC. I believe this is the first step toward long-term and fruitful collaboration that can deliver tangible results not only for our institutions but also for the entire European research and innovation community.”

In the coming months, the National Competence Centre for HPC will continue its dialogue and explore concrete forms of collaboration.

Michal Valko currently serves as Chief Models Officer at a stealth startup, is a researcher at the prestigious French institute Inria, and lectures at ENS Paris-Saclay. In 2024, he also became the principal engineer for Llama at Meta, where he is building the online reinforcement learning infrastructure and conducting research for the Llama 3 models.

His research focuses on designing algorithms that can operate with as little human intervention as possible. This includes deep reinforcement learning, bandit algorithms, unsupervised learning, as well as so-called self play — learning by comparing one’s own outcomes. Recently, he has concentrated on data representations, language models, and developing deep learning algorithms with solid theoretical foundations. He is currently working on algorithmic solutions that enable more efficient fine-tuning and better alignment of large language models (LMMs).

Michal Valko comes from Slovakia, where he attended the Alejová Gymnasium in Košice. Looking back, he especially values the close collaboration between this school and the Faculty of Science at UPJŠ, which sparked his interest in science. He went on to study artificial intelligence and mathematical methods in computer science at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of Comenius University. In 2011, he earned his PhD at the University of Pittsburgh under the supervision of Miloš Hauskrecht. He then completed his postdoctoral studies with Rémi Munos, with whom he later co-founded Google DeepMind Paris.

Throughout his career, he has also worked on projects with companies such as Intel, Adobe, Technicolor, and Microsoft Research. As early as 2009–2010, during an internship at Intel Labs in Silicon Valley, he contributed to the development of autonomous systems designed to help visually impaired people recognize faces.

The National Supercomputing Centre and the National Competence Centre for HPC will continue to actively seek opportunities to connect Slovakia’s HPC infrastructures with global leaders in the field of artificial intelligence. They believe that this meeting will also lay the groundwork for new ambitious initiatives.

The current collaboration focuses on leveraging high-performance computing to analyze texts that shape social and cultural discourse. The aim is to uncover patterns of thought within various religious and societal groups and to explore pathways toward mutual understanding.

Thanks to the capabilities of large language models, we are able to simulate scenarios of social reconciliation. Starting this autumn, students of the Religious and Cultural Mediation program will also actively participate in the research, working directly with the data and learning to interpret its societal impact.

Lucia Malíčková, Milan Urbančok, and Jozef Žuffa recently met at the faculty to discuss opportunities for connecting big data analysis with socio-theological research. This continues our collaboration aimed at gaining deeper insights into phenomena that create tension in today’s society — from questions of identity, the relationship between spirituality and secularism, through migration and ecology, to the issue of truth and disinformation.

The outcome will be interdisciplinary results that aim to enrich not only academic discourse but also broader societal dialogue. In this context, artificial intelligence becomes a tool for understanding — analyzing the language, discourses, and meaning frameworks of different groups, and helping to uncover new ways to foster meaningful social conversations.

In this way, we are cultivating a space where theological reflection, social engagement, and technological innovation meet — all in the service of easing tensions and seeking shared solutions.

This webinar is organized by the Slovak National Supercomputing Centre as part of the activities of the EuroCC project. (the National Competence Centre for HPC – NCC Slovakia) in cooperation with NCC Norway and NCC Portugal , and its aim is to foster dialogue among researchers, policymakers, and organizations working with advanced computing technologies. The webinar will be held online in English.

Abstract:

This webinar explores how advanced artificial intelligence and multi-agent simulations are being used to model the emergence and evolution of social movements, belief systems, and societal resilience. Prof. Dr. LeRon Shults will provide a high-level overview of how cultural cybernetics and cognitive science inform the modeling of group identities, religiosity, and extremism. Dr. Justin Lane will present the technical implementations, showcasing simulations of societal polarization, the spread of misinformation, and digital twin frameworks for national policy testing.

Drawing on real-world deployments with the United Nations, Norwegian government, and projects simulating online and offline social networks to test deradicalization strategies, the session will discuss how AI can ethically and effectively contribute to deradicalization (e.g., Minds.com), pandemic response (e.g., COVID-19 misinformation modeling), and crisis prediction (e.g., Israeli-Palestinian tensions). The talk will conclude with a look at the Slovak digital twin initiative and how HPC infrastructure can support future applications. umožňuje realizáciu týchto rozsiahlych simulácií a ich budúce aplikácie.

Speakers:

Prof. Dr. F. LeRon Shults – Cultural cybernetics, extremism, and group identity modeling
Prof. Shults is a professor in Global Development and Social Planning at the University of Agder (Kristiansand, Norway), and serves as scientific director at NORCE’s Center for Modeling Social Systems. With dual doctorates in educational psychology and philosophy of religion, he specializes in cultural cybernetics, applying agent-based simulations to model radicalization, belief systems, and social dynamics. His recent work includes predictive simulations for secularization trends, prosocial behavior, and extremism—showcasing how complex social phenomena can be modeled and forecasted.

Dr. Justin Lane – Multi-agent AI, belief dynamics, and simulation infrastructure
Dr. Lane is the co-founder and CEO of CulturePulse AI, and Scientific Director at the DEKK Institute (Bratislava), with affiliations at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He earned his DPhil in cognitive anthropology from Oxford.
A pioneer in multi-agent AI, he coined the term MAAI to describe psychologically realistic agent simulations that form the basis of social digital twins. His work spans modeling policy impacts, misinformation spread, cultural cohesion, and crisis response, and has received wide coverage in outlets like WIRED, BBC, New York Times—as well as academic acclaim with over 100 peer-reviewed papers and multimedia features.

Topics Include:

• Modeling the spread of misinformation, belief systems, and social cohesion
• AI-powered simulations for deradicalization and crisis prediction
• Real-world case studies: UN, Norwegian government, Israel–Palestine
• The Slovak digital twin initiative and its implementation on HPC infrastructure
• Role of Slovakia’s national supercomputer Devana in powering national-scale simulations
• Ethical implications and opportunities for international collaboration

Outline:

1. Introduction: Simulating Societies with AI
   • Brief intro to CulturePulse and simulation-based modeling
   • Importance of combining empirical data with cognitive models
2. Theoretical Foundations (LeRon Shults)
   • Cultural cybernetics and identity fusion theory
   • Religion, extremism, and social cohesion modeling
   • Case study: Mutual escalation of xenophobic anxiety in religious groups
3. Technical Implementation (Justin Lane)
   • Multi-agent artificial intelligence and belief-based modeling
   • Pythia API: 93-dimension belief ontology and social data analysis
   • Digital twins for national-scale simulations
4. Use Case Highlights
   • UN collaboration: Predicting sociopolitical instability
   • Norway: COVID-19 misinformation resilience modeling
   • Minds.com: Online deradicalization efforts
   • Israel-Palestine: Crisis modeling featured in WIRED
5. Slovakia Digital Twin Project
   • Aims and architecture
   • Role of HPC (e.g., Devana) in running simulations
   • Opportunities for Slovak institutions and research partners
6. Ethical Considerations and Future Work
   • AI ethics, transparency, and policy integration
   • Next steps for international collaboration
7. Discussion and Q&A

FCCN also coordinates the Portuguese National Competence Centre in High Performance Computing (NCC Portugal) and plays a key role in promoting HPC, HPDA, and AI technologies among academia, industry, and public administration.

The visit was an opportunity to deepen the collaboration between the two centres in the context of the EuroCC 2 project and explore shared challenges and strategic priorities. The conversation focused on sharing internal practices, identifying areas for joint activities, and reinforcing cooperation.

A central topic was the development of collaborative training activities and webinarsThe teams explored a joint webinar format that will typically include one speaker from each country, presenting either a research use case or a success story from a local SME that leveraged HPC to achieve a game-changing proof of concept.

This exchange underscores the value of bilateral collaboration within the EuroCC network, especially in aligning national initiatives and fostering knowledge transfer across borders.

The NCC Slovakia would like to thank Susana Caetano, Elana Araujo, and Ana Afonso z tímu FCCN/NCC Portugal za ich srdečné prijatie a inšpiratívnu výmenu. Tešíme sa na pokračovanie tejto spolupráce a skorú realizáciu prvého spoločného webinára!

Participants were introduced to several innovative approaches aimed at reducing linguistic inequality in the era of artificial intelligence:

• Generation of bilingual datasets: We used a database of professionally edited Slovak books and the LLaMA 3.3 70B Instruct model to translate between Slovak and English, resulting in datasets for training translation models and improving machine-translated Slovak.
• Summarization of scientific texts: Using the Gemini Flash Experimental model and the PLOS database, we generated Slovak summaries of scientific articles, contributing to the development of domain-specific language in large language models (LLMs).
• Enhancing cultural context: We are preparing a dataset based on Slovak sources aimed at improving the models’ ability to understand culturally specific topics and local context.

The webinar was hosted by Marek Dobeš, with Radovan Garabík and Peter Bednár as co-authors of the project. The research is conducted using high-performance computing infrastructure – the Slovak supercomputer Devana and the Italian supercomputer Leonardo, operated by the Cineca supercomputing center in Italy.

The case study highlights the potential for applying these methodologies to other low-resource languages. We believe that the insights gained from this project can inspire experts around the world.

The Technical University of Košice has long been among the leaders in the fields of materials research, metallurgy, and technological innovation. High-performance computing (HPC), provided by NSCC Slovakia, is a key tool for supporting research projects with demanding requirements for simulation, modeling, and data analysis. Connecting these two worlds—research and infrastructure—can open up new opportunities not only for scientists, but also for Slovak industry and education.

„We discussed specific ways to strengthen collaboration between universities and national institutions in the field of high-performance computing (HPC),“ said Lucia Malíčková. „The potential for joint projects, access to computing resources, and support for students in this field are areas where we see significant room for progress.“

The meeting represents a first step toward a long-term connection of infrastructure, expertise, and shared goals. Both parties aim not only to make use of available tools, but also to actively contribute to their development for the benefit of the scientific community and Slovakia’s innovative future.

Connecting the academic, public, and industrial sectors remains a challenge. Many initiatives encounter institutional or communication barriers that slow down the pace of innovation. That is why we see it as essential to launch a collaboration with a partner who can help take Slovak HPC to the next level.

We are truly excited about the genuine interest in creating synergies – not only on a formal level but also through practical, day-to-day collaboration. We see this as an opportunity to build an ecosystem where high-performance computing is not an isolated technology, but an active tool for innovation, research, product development, and the optimization of processes in public administration.

One of the main goals of both our competence center and the National Supercomputing Centre is to connect key stakeholders – research teams, small and medium-sized enterprises, public institutions, and technology partners – and to create the conditions for them to grow together. We believe that progress in the field of HPC can only happen where there is trust, a willingness to share experiences, and a shared vision.

We are still at the beginning, but we are already discussing concrete opportunities for technical integration, expert training, user support, and the strategic direction of the supercomputer to ensure it becomes a true national asset – accessible across sectors and regions. Our ambition is to contribute to the creation of a vibrant and functional HPC ecosystem that reflects both the practical needs and the potential of Slovak experts.

We believe this is not just a one-time project, but the beginning of a long-term collaboration built on trust, quality, and a shared goal. We are pleased to have found a partner in Eviden who shares this philosophy.

We are convinced that collaborations like this can elevate Slovak HPC to a new level – towards openness, strategic development, and meaningful participation in both European and global initiatives.

In addition to participating in the trade fair itself, we had the opportunity to take part in bilateral meetings and informal discussions with innovative Slovak companies that brought their technological visions to Portugal. 

Slovak companies showcasing the future today 

Triton Systems 

Triton Systems is a technology company focused on modern solutions for smart parking and automated ticketing that simplify the management of urban parking services. An interesting aspect of our discussion, however, was their specific interest in using HPC for training their own AI model. The company plans to deploy a customer support chatbot equipped with features such as speech-to-text recognition and natural language processing (NLP).  

IoMobility 

IoMobility is building a comprehensive urban mobility ecosystem that connects public transport, shared bikes, e-mobility, carsharing, and other services—all within a single platform with unified account management, payments, and journey planning. Thanks to the integration of a large volume of location and transport data, there is a real opportunity to leverage HPC for training advanced AI models, simulating residents’ mobility behaviour, or optimising infrastructure investments. 

Nexineo 

Nexineo presented an elegant solution for schools and businesses—virtualisation of computer classrooms and offices. Instead of traditional desktop computers, students and employees use so-called thin clients connected to a centralised server. This model significantly reduces energy consumption and maintenance needs. With HPC, there is an opportunity to scale computing power based on user needs, or even provide access to more demanding computational tools for schools focused on science, technology, or design. 

Creative industries and urban data: a connection with potential for HPC 

As part of the summit, we also had a highly inspiring discussion with a representative of Creative Industry Košice (CIKE) – an organisation that connects the creative sector, cultural actors, designers, and technological innovators. CIKE focuses on building international partnerships, supporting mobility, education, and the development of data-driven urban strategies based on citizen participation. 

A particularly interesting aspect was the use of data in planning and evaluating urban policies, cultural activities, and community development. This is precisely where supercomputing power could bring significant added value—for example, in analysing large urban data sets or modelling the impacts of cultural events on infrastructure., alebo pri využití strojového učenia na identifikáciu vzorcov správania obyvateľov. 

The aim of our participation was not only to present the possibilities of high-performance computing (HPC) to Slovak companies, but also to build bridges between industry, research, and technology. The Portugal Smart Cities Summit proved to be an ideal platform for exchanging ideas, building partnerships, and demonstrating that Slovakia, too, has much to offer on the European stage of innovation for smart cities. 

The collaboration focuses on creating new opportunities for companies and institutions with ties to France – whether they are French businesses operating in Slovakia or organizations employing experts with experience in the French academic or research environment. An important aspect of the partnership will also be the support of mobility and exchange programmes, enabling the sharing of know-how and the development of sustainable cooperation networks.

High-performance computing plays a key role in addressing complex research and industrial challenges – from the development of new materials and climate modeling to advanced applications of artificial intelligence. It is precisely in this area that Slovak and French partners see significant potential for joint growth and capacity sharing, whether through access to supercomputing infrastructure, the development of software solutions, or support for small and medium-sized enterprises in their digital transformation.

The beginning of this strategic dialogue opens the door to long-term cooperation, with the ambition not only to strengthen scientific and research ties between Slovakia and France, but also to contribute to building a competitive European landscape in the field of digital technologies and computational power.

The launch of this strategic dialogue paves the way for long-term cooperation, aiming not only to strengthen scientific and research connections between Slovakia and France, but also to contribute to the development of a competitive European ecosystem in digital technologies and high-performance computing.

This cooperation thus represents an important step towards more effective use of scientific and innovation potential, the development of strong international ties, and the strengthening of both Slovakia’s and France’s position in the field of advanced digital technologies.