Central European NCC working group in Maribor
On June 12, representatives from national competence centres for HPC situated in the central Europe region met during the first Central European NCC working group.. The event was organized by NCC Slovenia and NCC Austria in Maribor, Slovenia and online.
3 sessions were on the agenda, covering the topics of interaction with industry, training and communication. Participants worked in small groups, discussing specific points and sharing best practices within the topics, such as SME approach strategies, service portfolio and how to deal with the state aid issues, rules of engagement with a private company.
Training event formats were discussed, considering post-pandemic trends; experiences with NCC-CoE collaborations were highlighted and different strategies of attracting SME participants to training courses were shared.
The communication session focused on promotion and communication channels, build-up of an audience for different topics and organization of theme-specific webinar series. In each section, opportunities and invitations for collaboration were discussed, as well.
The event was a great opportunity for getting to know colleagues from neighboring NCCs, informal networking, fostering collaboration and finding new inspiration. Great thanks to the organizers and we are looking forward to the next working group meeting!



BeeGFS in Practice — Parallel File Systems for HPC, AI and Data-Intensive Workloads 6 Feb - This webinar introduces BeeGFS, a leading parallel file system designed to support demanding HPC, AI, and data-intensive workloads. Experts from ThinkParQ will explain how parallel file systems work, how BeeGFS is architected, and how it is used in practice across academic, research, and industrial environments.
When a production line knows what will happen in 10 minutes 5 Feb - Every disruption on a production line creates stress. Machines stop, people wait, production slows down, and decisions must be made under pressure. In the food industry—especially in the production of filled pasta products, where the process follows a strictly sequential set of technological steps—one unexpected issue at the end of the line can bring the entire production flow to a halt. But what if the production line could warn in advance that a problem will occur in a few minutes? Or help decide, already during a shift, whether it still makes sense to plan packaging later the same day? These were exactly the questions that stood at the beginning of a research collaboration that brought together industrial data, artificial intelligence, and supercomputing power.
Who Owns AI Inside an Organisation? — Operational Responsibility 5 Feb - This webinar focuses on how organisations can define clear operational responsibility and ownership of AI systems in a proportionate and workable way. Drawing on hands-on experience in data protection, AI governance, and compliance, Petra Fernandes will explore governance approaches that work in practice for both SMEs and larger organisations. The session will highlight internal processes that help organisations stay in control of their AI systems over time, without creating unnecessary administrative burden.
