INESC TEC reinforced international position in HPC at CENTRA 9 and consolidated transnational collaborations

INESC TEC reinforced international position in HPC at CENTRA 9 and consolidated transnational collaborations

INESC TEC took part in CENTRA 9, a meeting of the international CENTRA (Collaborations to Enable Transnational Cyberinfrastructure Applications) network, which brings together research centres, institutes and laboratories from various regions to advance transnational cyberinfrastructures and their applications – a critical pillar for the progress of high-performance computing (HPC) and associated ecosystems. 

24th February 2026

INESC TEC’s participation underscored the commitment to a global and collaborative scientific agenda, focusing on strengthening the international position in the field of High-Performance Computing through concrete results and new cooperation opportunities. 

This edition focused on nurturing existing collaborations and the establishment of new partnerships, including the presentation of new projects and updates on initiatives with more than seven years of development. This setting fostered discussion of new research lines and joint work between entities from different countries. The INESC TEC team contributed with four presentations, showcasing capabilities relevant to the future of HPC, including efficient and secure data management, as well as performance and sustainability in modern data centres. 

Among the presentations, João Paulo, INESC TEC researcher in storage systems and lecturer at the School of Engineering of the University of Minho, presented the project Efficient and Secure HPC and Cloud Computing, highlighting the latest results, new research paths, and the exchange of two researchers between INESC TEC and Japan’s AIST – a dynamic that strengthens knowledge transfer and hands-on collaboration within the network. 

Cláudia Brito, INESC TEC researcher in Artificial Intelligence (AI), namely Systems and AI Privacy, presented Performance and Sustainability Management in Modern Data Centers, focusing on the results of the PASM project, launched in 2024 in partnership with Florida International University (USA) and AIST (Japan). Her presentation also highlighted results from the DisaggregatedHPC project, developed in partnership with NIAR (Taiwan), as well as scientific publications stemming from these international collaborations. 

“This event enabled the creation of new partnerships and fostered the continuation of existing ones. The presentation of new projects and updates on the longest-running initiative led to productive discussions on new research lines and to combine work among different entities,” explained Cláudia Brito. 

Beyond the HPC axis, INESC TEC also established a connection to a new Asian collaborative network: PADIN (Pan-Asian Dental Informatics Network). This project aims to propose an approach based on federated learning and interoperability to support Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) using dental data, keeping data within institutions while securely sharing only training parameters – making this applied endeavour socially impactful. 

INESC TEC was represented at the event by Cláudia Brito, João Paulo and Rui Oliveira, Director of INESC TEC and lecturer at the University of Minho. 

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC and the University of Minho.