25 new Czech research projects utilizing LUMI chosen

IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center in the Czech Republic has announced the results of the 31st round of its Open Access Grant Competition, including the Czech national resource share for LUMI. A total of 25 new Czech research projects utilizing LUMI were chosen in this call.

The selected projects represent various disciplines, many of them also utilizing AI. Five selected projects are described in more detail below – in these projects researchers are, e.g., developing a modern language model for the Czech language, optimizing the design of pumps, and studying liposome delivery systems and targeted drug delivery to the body.

Foundational Czech Language Model

Researcher: Petr Marek, Czech Technical University in Prague
Field: Informatics

Petr Marek from the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) plans to use the computational resources of the Karolina and LUMI supercomputers to develop a modern language model for the Czech language that will be able to understand, generate, and interact with written text.

This project will focus on creating a basic Czech language model with an emphasis on maximum efficiency, scalability, and performance, using state-of-the-art computing techniques and platforms such as CUDA, the open-source Transformers library from Hugging Face, and Hugging Face Accelerate.

The goal is also to eventually create a bilingual Czech-English version of the model, which could be extended to other Central European languages, inspired by advanced Phi language models. The CTU researchers plan to use a large dataset containing 350 billion Czech tokens.

Covalent Dative Bonding, H-Bonding, and Charge Transfer Complexes: Surprising Stability/Instability Trends with Increasing Solvent Polarity

Researcher: Pavel Hobza, Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry
of the Czech Academy of Sciences and IT4Innovations
Field: Material sciences

The project of Professor Pavel Hobza from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS and IT4Innovations focuses on studying the effect of solvent polarity on the stability of covalent dative and non-covalent complexes.

To analyse these interactions, Professor Hobza’s team will use the Karolina, Barbora, and LUMI supercomputers and modern laboratory methods. Solvation, the envelopment of ions by solvent molecules, plays a crucial role in supramolecular chemistry.
The research aims to gain a deeper understanding of the chemical bonds and interactions in different solvent environments, leading to the development of new technologies and materials necessary for solvation processes.

Optimisation of design and production processes of vertical pumps using modern technologies

Researcher: Tomáš Blejchař, IT4Innovations
Field: Engineering

The project of Tomáš Blejchař from IT4Innovations focuses on improving the design of vertical pumps using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Pumps are among the most used machines in industry and everyday life. Their efficient design is critical to reducing energy consumption, which is especially important for pumps running continuously, such as water and wastewater treatment plants, heating and air conditioning systems, etc.

Pump design is a complex process influenced by many input parameters and involves manual calculations followed by numerical simulations. This project aims to use neural networks and artificial intelligence to simplify pump design, specifically to automatically correct the initial rough calculations, allowing the optimal pump design to be found in a single step. This will save not only the energy and computational resources required for iterative numerical simulations but also the time required to find the optimal pump design.

This research is closely related to the project funded by the Trend programme of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (FW10010202).

Many-body physics of van der Waals heterostructures from 2D materials

Researcher: František Karlický, University of Ostrava
Field: Material sciences

František Karlický and his team of nanostructure physicists from the University of Ostrava (nano.osu.cz) focus, among other things, on two-dimensional (2D) materials that have the potential for flexible and ultrathin functional devices such as future nanoelectronics and solar cells. They also investigate van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures formed by layering 2D materials and have unique electronic and optical properties.

They use computationally intensive multiparticle methods to simulate physical phenomena that traditional methods cannot capture. This research, funded by the Just Transition Operational Programme (LERCO), will contribute to a better understanding of vdW heterostructures and support further experimental research and technological applications.

In-silico insight into endosomal escape

Researcher: Martin Šrejber, Palacký University Olomouc
Field: Biosciences

Liposome delivery systems, especially lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), have played a key role in cancer chemotherapy, gene therapy, pharmacotherapy, and vaccine research in recent decades. LNPs play a key role in the targeted delivery of mRNA to vaccines, where they form a lipid carrier for mRNA fragments, thereby ensuring their safe transport into human cells.

The project of Martin Šrejber from CATRIN at Palacký University in Olomouc aims to use the Karolina and LUMI supercomputers to investigate the complex processes involved in targeted drug delivery to the body using state-of-the-art computational methods. The research will focus on investigating the interaction of lipid nanoparticles with the plasma membrane, the process of endosome maturation, and the subsequent release of mRNA fragments. Endosomes are membrane “vesicles” formed by endocytosis and are crucial for transporting substances into the cellular environment. In the context of lipid nanoparticle drug delivery, the endosomal release process is critical for successful delivery of mRNA into the cellular environment. This research is part of the MINIGRAPH project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme.

The Principal Investigators and co-researchers can use the allocated computing resources in this call until 29 May 2025.

Image copyrights belong to the respective research groups.

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