BUT is part of the Czech AI Factory consortium: We are helping to build a Czech supercomputer for artificial intelligence.

The European Commission has announced the results of the EuroHPC European supercomputing initiative call for proposals. Among the successful applicants is the Czech Republic, specifically a consortium of six partners including the Brno University of Technology. Over the next three years, the IT4Innovations center, which operates at VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava, will install a new supercomputer called KarolAIna, built on approximately 340 state-of-the-art AI chips with a total performance of 850 PFlop/s in standard AI operations. The supercomputer, which will become the flagship of the Czech Republic's AI infrastructure, will be fully dedicated to research, development, and services in the field of artificial intelligence for the Czech and European communities. As part of the Czech AI Factory (CZAI) project, it will be complemented by a package of services provided by consortium experts, including consulting, models, and algorithms.

Today, BUT is already a significant user of supercomputing technologies, and, for example, the Speech@FIT research group from the Faculty of Information Technology consumes more than 150,000 node-hours (computing hours) per year for training and testing large AI models focused on speech processing. Our faculty owes this great success in the form of participation in a new project to the long-term cooperation of its researchers with the Ostrava-based research and innovation center IT4Innovations. Since 2013, this center has focused on the areas of high-performance computing (HPC), data analysis (HPDA), artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing (QC).

Buty University of Technology will be intensively involved in the Czech AI Factory project: in addition to AI computing and AI services developed at FIT, CEITEC, and FAST, it is worth mentioning Prof. Jiří Jaroš from FIT Buty University of Technology, who is responsible for the educational part of the project aimed not only at students but also at scientists and industrial developers. According to Prof. Jan Černocký from FIT VUT, who coordinated VUT's involvement in the Czech AI Factory, the project has at least three significant benefits. "At a time when supercomputing is the bread and butter of any serious work in the field of artificial intelligence, the new supercomputer will enable Czech researchers and developers to keep pace with the world," says Černocký. According to him, other benefits include the fact that the funds earmarked for development and services related to CZAI will enable laboratory prototypes to be moved into production conditions and will help the Czech AI industry and public administration. Finally, according to Černocký, it should be emphasized that the project itself will connect leading Czech workplaces from several institutions. Černocký also recalled that BUT was a founding member of the original IT4Innovations consortium, which built the first Czech supercomputer in Ostrava.

The total cost of the Czech AI Factory is almost CZK 1 billion, half of which is covered by the European initiative EuroHPC JU and 50% by the Czech Republic. In addition to the Czech Republic, the founders of the six newly announced AI factories include Poland, Romania, Spain, the Netherlands, and Lithuania. The newly opened AI Factories will join 13 previously selected ones, creating an interconnected network of AI centers that will be ready to support innovation in artificial intelligence across Europe. Each AI Factory will function as a single point of contact, offering startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, public organizations, and researchers in the field of artificial intelligence comprehensive support in deploying AI tools, managing and processing data sets, accessing computing resources optimized for AI, etc.

For more information, see the press release from the IT4Innovatios national supercomputing center.