Cooperation between the University of Sarajevo and the University of Maribor in the direction of the development of the University's first research supercomputer

University of Sarajevo Vice Rector for Finance, Prof. Dr. Tarik Zaimović officially visited the University of Maribor (Slovenia) with the aim of opening a dialogue on the institutionalization of scientific research cooperation that would lead to the establishment of the first research supercomputer at the University of Sarajevo, as well as the upgrading of the national research infrastructure in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Vice Rector Zaimović and his colleagues from the University of Maribor - Prof. Dr. Zoran Reno, who worked on the establishment of the first Slovenian supercomputer, and Branko Zebec, the technical director of the Institute of Information Sciences in Maribor, discussed the joining of the University of Sarajevo to the European network European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) for the establishment of supercomputers in the European Union. The next step would be the establishment of a research supercomputer at the University of Sarajevo, which would enable the use of the resources of the EuroHPC network of Europe.

The preliminary talks confirm the readiness of the University of Maribor to support the efforts of the University of Sarajevo related to the construction of a capital scientific research infrastructure, and in the coming period, additional coordination of key aspects of cooperation will follow, which will ultimately enable the establishment of the first research supercomputer in the Canton of Sarajevo.

Also, the topics of discussion were the possibilities of cooperation through the Digital Europe Program, as well as Digital Innovation Hubs, which the University of Sarajevo has been intensively working on for a long time.

During his stay at the University of Maribor, Vice Rector Zaimović also visited the Institute of Information Sciences in Maribor (IZUM), where the first Slovenian supercomputer “VEGA” is located.

HPC Vega is equipped for high-performance computing and increases computer capacity in Slovenia and the European Union as a whole, and helps researchers as well as other users in the public and private sectors. The research processes generated by HPC Vega help Europe to compete globally in strategic areas such as artificial intelligence, advanced data analytics (HPDA), personalized medicine, bioengineering, combating climate change and the development of medicine and new materials. The “HPC Vega” supercomputer was named after the greatest Slovenian mathematician Jurij Bartolomej Vega (1754-1802).