High Performance Computing Essential for Economic Development
The fourth industrial revolution is based on the High Performance Computing (HPC) and whoever remains outside of this trend will find themselves in the dead end of the global economy. This was the conclusion of a forum about HPC for small and medium sized businesses that was held today at the Croatian Chamber of Economy.
The HPC technology represents an integration of complex algorithms, strong computing systems and fast network infrastructure, in order to efficiently, reliably and quickly implement complex programs and achieve high performance, the participants explained.
"Those outside of the computing are outside of competition. There is simply no success without computing”, said Karolj Skala from the Ruđer Bošković Institute, adding that HPC also pertains to the network-oriented, self-organizing distributed autonomous systems. "Europe has been trying to persuade small and medium sized businesses to use HPC technology. It is not easy to be a leader in this process, but it certainly does pay off", added Skala.
With an aim to point out to Croatian entrepreneurs the benefits of the advanced computing in the form of HPC technology, Tome Antičić, director of the Ruđer Bošković Institute, said that the link between economy and science is much stronger in developed countries than it is in Croatia. "There is no competition nor are there competitive products without innovation, and every innovation is preceded by quality research", said Antičić.
According to him, in the next few decades the world is going to change more quickly than in the last few centuries. If Croatia does not adjust to the latest trends, including HPC, said Antičić, it is going to face stagnation or a collapse and even more dramatic brain drain, as well as even higher unemployment and poverty rates and it will become increasingly irrelevant in the international market.
During the forum, it was explained that Croatian small and medium sized businesses have at their disposal significant EU funds that are disbursed via several public competitions. One of them "Fortissimo", amounting to 1.3 million euros, is currently open for applications.
The Forum was organized by the Ruđer Bošković Institute in cooperation with Croatian Chamber of Economy and Arctur d.o.o. Event was sponsored by Croatian Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Crafts. The main goal of event was to raise awareness of HPC technology in SME sector. The event was attended by many representatives from SME sector which includes business sectors such as 3D rendering, animations, software/hardware engineering, modeling, 3D printing, scanning and simulations.