SCCH: Supercomputer in Hagenberg up and Running

At Software Competence Center Hagenberg (SCCH) a significant milestone has been reached in the advancement of innovation and technology. The high-performance cluster (HPC) began operation. It is among the first in Europe to have an integrated HPE Apollo 6500 Gen10 Plus System. The constantly increasing amounts of data in projects and complex AI applications can be managed more efficiently and quickly by HPCs, since they are designed as high-performance systems.

With the high-performance cluster, SCCH closes the gap between knowledge transfer and infrastructure by setting up a state-of-the-art on-prem cloud service for science and SCCH partners. This enables development from the first AI model through to prototypes and their services in a way that makes optimum use of funds and time.

The cluster is fully orchestrated on the basis of Kubernetes (a system for managing containerized applications) and offers straightforward and secure access to infrastructure by means of a web interface. Development environments can be started easily and quickly via the web store. The partners from science and industry are also given insights into current research developments from areas such as artificial intelligence, data analysis and software development and can participate in them.

A specific example: the partner companies participating in the current COMET module S3AI, which include PKE Holding, KTM Innovation, RUBBLE MASTER HMH, TissueGnostics, Ventopay and EYYES, benefit directly from HPCs at SCCH. In this project, the foundations for creating secure collaborative artificial intelligence systems are being developed. These are methods of protecting privacy, preventing hacking and guaranteeing that the system behaves as intended. The approaches adopted are taken from the field of transfer learning. The new high-performance cluster will make SCCH even more competitive.

Furthermore, we congratulate SCCH on their “podium” in the contest for the Upper Austrian Award for Innovation 2022. The project “Künstliche Intelligenz hilft bei Kinderwunsch (Machine Learning for Blastocyst-Analysis)”, which shows how artificial intelligence can help women conceive, finished in the top three in the research centres category. Recently the project also won the eAward industry award 2022 and is currently on show in the Innovation Corner at the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology – a museum showcase for ground-breaking innovations from Upper Austria.

Photo: © SCCH