Successful Symposium: HPC and AI Driven Innovation in Healthcare

High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are rapidly transforming the landscape of healthcare — moving far beyond research prototypes into solutions that can shape clinical practice and improve patient outcomes. This transition from strategy to real-world impact was the focus of the recent EuroCC2 initiative “Symposium: HPC and AI Driven Innovation in Healthcare”. AI-AGE team participated in organization, coordination, and presentations at this event.

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The Vision: Bridging Strategy and Clinical Practice

The event was organized in cross-collaboration with EuroCC2 & EuroCC4SEE
AI-AGE project was presented and further collaboration with EuroCC3 was discussed

Healthcare is today generating vast volumes of data — from medical imaging to electronic health records, genomics, wearable sensors and beyond. HPC provides the computational power needed to process and analyse this data at scale, while AI techniques such as deep learning unlock patterns that are invisible to traditional analysis methods. Together, HPC and AI form a powerful synergy for healthcare innovation:

  • Accelerated diagnostics: AI models trained on large annotated datasets can assist clinicians by accurately identifying disease signs in imaging and other modalities.
  • Biomarker discovery and precision medicine: High-throughput computing enables the discovery of subtle biological signals indicative of disease progression or treatment response.
  • Predictive and personalised care: HPC-enabled AI workflows can predict patient outcomes and support real-time clinical decision making.
Symposium included presentations of successs stories from the region

This strategic capability — from data to insights to impact — was the core theme explored through EuroCC2 activities in Montenegro and the wider South-Eastern Europe region.

Key Takeaways for Healthcare Innovation

  1. From Research to Clinical Utility
    HPC and AI solutions are no longer confined to laboratories. With appropriate infrastructure, data governance and clinical integration pathways, these technologies are being translated into tools that support healthcare professionals in diagnosis and treatment.
  2. Regional and Cross-Institutional Collaboration
    The EuroCC2 framework — including the National Competence Centre Montenegro — brings together academic institutions, healthcare providers, and technology partners to share resources, expertise, and training. These collaborative ecosystems are essential for building sustainable HPC-AI capacity in healthcare.
  3. Capacity Building and Skills Development
    One of the crucial pillars of impactful HPC and AI adoption is training. Workshops, seminars, and hands-on sessions equip researchers, clinicians, and students with the skills to leverage HPC and AI tools effectively in their domains.
  4. Enabling Infrastructure Access
    Through EuroCC2 and related programmes, researchers and practitioners gain access to European HPC resources — reducing barriers to entry for high-end computing and enabling complex analyses that were previously impractical.

What This Means for Montenegro and Beyond

Montenegro, alongside partner regions across Europe, is building the foundation for a healthcare ecosystem that integrates HPC and AI into everyday clinical workflows. By investing in strategic computing infrastructure, enabling cross-sector collaboration, and fostering technical expertise, the potential to improve patient outcomes, streamline clinical processes, and support data-driven medicine is growing stronger.

The event gathered representatives from Healthcare and IT sectors already involved in research and development of HPC and AI driven solutions for healthcare and medical research. More info at NCC Montenegro site: [link].

Over 20 participants in the Symposium, important discussion of next steps

HPC & AI in Healthcare: From Research to Clinical Practice in Montenegro and SEE

High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly moving beyond research laboratories into real clinical environments. Across Montenegro and the SEE region, promising AI solutions have been developed for medical image analysis, biomarker detection, and predictive diagnostics. The critical challenge today is ensuring their structured transition from research prototypes to validated, deployable tools within healthcare systems.

Symposium on HPC and AI in Healthcare and Medicine co-organiozed by Ai-AGE

This event addresses precisely that transition. It focuses on how HPC infrastructure, interdisciplinary collaboration, and coordinated ecosystem support can accelerate the integration of AI into everyday clinical practice. Particular attention will be given to available computational capacities, real-life use cases, and pathways toward sustainable deployment.

The event is organized as a joint initiative between NCC Montenegro and NCC Bosnia and Herzegovina, within the broader framework of EuroCC 2 and EuroCC4SEE. It also represents a form of cross-project pollination with the AI-AGE project, demonstrating how research-driven innovation can evolve into applied healthcare solutions through regional cooperation.

AI-AGE will be featured in the presentation session

Researchers, clinicians, innovators, and industry partners are invited to join the discussion, exchange expertise, and contribute to shaping the next steps for HPC- and AI-driven healthcare across Southeast Europe. The event is scheduled for Friday, 13 Feb 2026. Please contact NCC Montenegro for further details.

Relationship between retinal neurodysfunction and cognitive impairment in type 2 diabetes — RECOGNISED cross-sectional study

We are proud to share a newly published paper co-authored by an AI-AGE researcher within the Horizon 2020 RECOGNISED consortium in DIABETOLOGIA. This research resulted from collaboration of leading European experts in diabetes, diabetic retinopathy and cognitive impairment. The study shows that retinal neurodysfunction is linked to mild cognitive impairment in people with type 2 diabetes, reinforcing the concept of the retina as a window into brain health.

Beyond its scientific findings, the project marks an important step in strengthening international research infrastructure. Our team helped implement rigorous Good Clinical Practice standards and harmonised imaging and cognitive assessment protocols across multiple European centres — groundwork essential for future large, high-quality datasets suitable for AI-driven discovery of early, non-invasive biomarkers of aging and multimorbidity. This collaboration advances the AI-AGE mission to expand cross-border research capacity and supports ethically robust, standardised big-data research in aging and diabetes. Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00125-025-06664-4

FFplus Open Call: Innovation Studies – Generative AI on European Supercomputers

The FFplus Innovation Studies Open Call is now open, offering European SMEs and start-ups a focused opportunity to develop and validate generative AI (GenAI) solutions using large-scale European supercomputing resources. The call opens on 3 February 2026 and targets early-stage, high-impact projects with a clear proof-of-concept orientation.

Click to open application website

Coordinated by HLRS (High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart), FFplus supports innovation at the intersection of AI and HPC, enabling companies to overcome computational barriers and scale beyond conventional cloud or on-premise infrastructures.

Feel free to check with NCC Montenegro for help with the application.

Key facts

  • Funding: up to €300,000 per project
  • Deadline: 25 February 2026 (or earlier if 250 proposals are submitted)
  • Eligible applicants: European SMEs and start-ups

AI-AGE Contributes to EuroCC4SEE Collaboration Efforts in Sarajevo

Researchers from AI-AGE actively participated in the cross-NCC meeting in Sarajevo, held on 26-27 November under the auspices of the EuroCC4SEE initiative. During this gathering — organized by NCC Montenegro and NCC Bosnia & Herzegovina — colleagues from across Southeast Europe exchanged expertise in high-performance computing (HPC), AI, and regional collaboration, reaffirming our shared commitment to advancing HPC/AI capacity in the region.

AI-AGE researchers participated in the EuroCC4SEE meeting in Sarajevo

The participation of AI-AGE researchers in this forum not only strengthens the link between our aging-biomarker research and HPC/AI infrastructure, but also opens new opportunities for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and access to regional HPC resources. We believe this cooperation will significantly benefit ongoing and future AI-AGE projects, ultimately accelerating innovation in AI-driven biomedical research.

We discussed the potential collaboration and presented AI-AGE efforts

AI-AGE Project Meeting

The AI-AGE team held an online meeting to discuss ongoing work with the UK Biobank and data access for retinal imaging analysis. Team members reviewed progress on obtaining RAP login credentials and explored existing repositories of annotated fundus photographs to support AI-based quality differentiation. Collaboration between Dejan, Ivan, and Isidora will focus on identifying suitable datasets and pre-trained models for future algorithm development. This meeting marks an important step toward integrating real-world clinical data into AI-AGE research workflows.

Data gathered from UK Biobank participants (soruce: UK Biobank)

AI-AGE featured in the EuroCC4SEE seminar “5 Beats of Intelligence”

Successful presentation and from Dejan Babic from University of Donja Gorica at the EuroCC4SEE Seminar organized by NCC Turkiye. This was a part of the EuroCC4SEE project, five countries – Türkiye, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina – have joined forces to present an engaging online seminar series titled: “5 Beats of Intelligence: AI Meets Diverse Domains”.

Successful presentation at the Seminar series, around 25 attendees

More details on schedule of seminar presentations and and registrations can be accessed at NCC Turkiye website at the foillowing link.

The presentation covered use cases from the AI-AGE project implemented at UDG with NCC support

AI-AGE Resarechers Participated in Realization of Short Course: From PC to HPC (EuroCC4SEE)

The one-day short course “From Personal Computing to HPC”, held on April 29, 2025, successfully brought together around 20 participants from academia, industry, and public institutions. The course offered a practical introduction to the evolution from everyday computing environments to high-performance computing (HPC), with a focus on real-world applications and national infrastructure. Mr Dejan Babic gave presentation on the use of UDG cluster for solving use cases pertinent to AI applications in medicine.

Dejan Babić and Elvis Taruh guided attendees through key concepts, showcasing how HPC resources can be leveraged for data-intensive tasks and advanced simulations. Through interactive discussions and live demonstrations, participants gained insights into the capabilities of Montenegro’s EuroCC infrastructure and how to access and utilize HPC resources for their own research or professional needs. The course sparked meaningful exchanges and interest in further training, highlighting the growing demand for computational skills in diverse fields. AI-AGE computing node was featured in the training that was done in the context of EuroCC2 and EuroCC4SEE projects. More about the event at the HPC Montenegro website [link].

Upcoming NVidia Bootcamps

Want to learn how to use artificial intelligence in scientific research? Or how to write efficient parallel code for computations on multiple graphical accelerators?

Join one of the upcoming NVIDIA bootcamps – fully online, free of charge, and led by experts from the field. Registration capacity is limited – don’t wait too long!

AI for Science Bootcamp (27-28 May 2025)

  • Learn how to use tools like PyTorch, NVIDIA Modulus, and NeMo to tackle scientific problems using artificial intelligence.
  • Link: https://lnkd.in/e7h7n-52

Multi-GPU Programming Bootcamp (17-18 June 2025)

  • Interested in performance scaling and parallel programming across multiple graphical accelerators? This course will walk you through writing efficient multi-GPU code using libraries such as NCCL and NVSHMEM.
  • Link: https://lnkd.in/ekPSGCRg

Advancing Medical Education: Collaboration with DECODE on Global Digital Health Guidelines

A groundbreaking initiative led by a group of 211 international experts from 79 countries has resulted in the publication of new guidelines aimed at integrating digital health competencies into medical education worldwide. These guidelines, titled Digital Health Competencies in Medical Education (DECODE), were published in JAMA Network Open and provide a comprehensive framework to help medical institutions prepare future doctors for the digital transformation of healthcare. Among the contributors to this landmark study were experts from the University of Montenegro’s Faculty of Medicine, highlighting the country’s role in shaping the future of medical education. AI-AGE team members participated in this effort, with one of its team members co-authoring the study.

The DECODE guidelines focus on four key areas: professionalism in digital health, patient and population digital health, health information systems, and health data science. These competencies are already being adopted in various countries, where they have influenced new learning outcomes for medical graduates. To support their implementation, an online event will be held on March 14, 2025, offering insights into how institutions can integrate these competencies into their curricula. As the Faculty of Medicine aligns its education strategy with DECODE, this initiative represents a significant step toward equipping future healthcare professionals with the necessary skills to navigate the evolving landscape of digital healthcare.

Click on image to view the paper at the JAMA Network Open website