From Crash Tests to Personalized Vaccines: Real-World Applications of HPC
As part of the INOVATO project, a webinar was held titled “How HPC Can Help Companies Innovate, Improve Efficiency, and Increase Competitiveness.” The keynote speaker was Lucia Malíčková from the National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) and the National Competence Centre for HPC. In her presentation, she introduced a broad audience to the wide range of opportunities that high-performance computing (HPC) offers today for companies, research organizations, and startups operating in Slovakia.
Participants learned how supercomputers like Devana are becoming a key tool for innovation in industry, science, and public services. Lucia Malíčková demonstrated the power of this system with a comparison: “Devana does overnight what my laptop would take an entire summer break to complete.”
The presentation featured numerous concrete examples of HPC applications: developing AI models that would take two months on a regular computer can be completed in just 1.5 hours in an HPC environment; complex material simulations that would normally take 10 days are performed on Devana in just 15 minutes. Digital crash tests were also mentioned—companies like BMW and GESTAMP have used supercomputers to carry them out, saving time, reducing costs, and minimizing the need for physical prototypes.
Lucia Malíčková also presented specific successful Slovak projects carried out in collaboration with the NCC. These included, for example, the transfer of CFD calculations to an HPC environment in the field of aerodynamics (e.g., SharkAero), anomaly detection in time series using deep learning for pathological gambling prevention, microcapsule analysis using AI and machine learning, and speech-to-text processing with information extraction from audio recordings using synthetic data.
The presentation also clarified the difference between conventional data centers and HPC centers. While data centers primarily provide storage and data distribution, HPC is focused on computationally intensive tasks such as simulations, artificial intelligence models, and digital twins. It is precisely the connection between these two worlds that opens up new opportunities for innovation in business. A key message was that the use of supercomputers is no longer the privilege of large corporations. Thanks to the support of NCC Slovakia, these technologies are now accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises, startups, and the academic community.
The National Competence Centre for HPC operates as a “one-stop shop” – offering access to computing resources, expert consulting, tailored advice, online courses, and support for pilot projects. An added benefit is the opportunity to collaborate with experts and navigate funding opportunities through both national and European grant schemes.
In conclusion, Lucia Malíčková summarized the key benefits that HPC offers—reducing development time from months to days or even hours, cutting costs through digital simulations instead of physical prototypes, providing access to otherwise unattainable tools, and increasing the potential to attract investors in fields such as AI, biotechnology, and advanced research. She emphasized that Slovakia now possesses an exceptional tool that can drive innovation forward. “If we give companies access to Devana, they can complete in a week what would normally take a year—that’s the kind of investment that pays off the fastest,” she noted.