Superheroes 4 Science is a project supported by the Visegrad Funds.
In the first edition of the project, we promoted High-performance computing and particularly supercomputing. Both have become necessary for the advancement of all scientific fields, becoming the third pillar of science after theory and experiment. Popularisation of the importance of supercomputers and their use for the improvement of people’s everyday lives was necessary. People seem to be mystified by supercomputers if they are even aware of them. Each project partner currently operates a national supercomputing infrastructure and invests great effort into popularisation activities in order to explain what supercomputing is, why it is essential in today’s society, and why it is a justifiable investment. We explained the fundamental role supercomputers play in innovations and scientific advancements, the advantages of their use, and highlighted how they influence everyday life. The aim of the project was not only to educate the general public, but also to inspire the younger generation in V4 countries to take up careers in science and technology.
In the follow-up project, that we are implementing now, we would like to focus on explaining High-performance computing (HPC), which is an essential field of technology that focuses on the use of supercomputers to solve complex problems and perform computationally intensive tasks. Amongst such demanding tasks fall Artificial intelligence (AI) and Quantum Computing (QC). HPC plays a vital role in training and deploying AI. QC is even more challenging to grasp as it is based on totally different principles than classical computing. All project partners are the national supercomputing infrastructure providers and aim to educate children, students and the general public to allow them to engage with these cutting-edge technologies and deepen their understanding of these rapidly developing fields. As we are all facing difficulties with hiring new skilled personnel, we would like to inspire more students to choose computationally oriented studies by introducing to them the three topics which are now extremely popular as they are more and more influencing our everyday lives.
