Riga Technical University (RTU)

Riga Technical University (RTU) is the largest technological university in the Baltic States, with important industrial relationships, a multi-disciplinary technological base and international connections. RTU with 9 faculties, 35 institutes and about 15,000 students at present serves the needs of rapidly growing industry of the Baltic region. Project tasks will be carried out by RTU High Performance Computing (HPC) Centre in collaboration with RTU Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology.

​

RTU HPC Centre plays an important role in the Latvian e-infrastructure providing HPC competence and services to other research organizations: University of Latvia, Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, and others. The HPC Centre was established in 2012 under the Office of the Vice-Rector for Research as a follow-up to computing activities initiated by the BalticGrid (2005–2010). It provides access to modern computing infrastructure (HPC cluster, data storage facilities), linkage to European e-infrastructures, modelling and simulation services, scientific software for academic research and studies, training and seminars, consultations and development of open source numerical modelling tools.

​

The Centre’s staff has more than 10 years of experience in supporting scientists and engineers with high-performance computing. The effective use of saleable computer simulation tools is one of our competences. We have implemented industrial research projects related to computational fluid dynamic simulations and design using open source software. HPC Centre also develops new algorithms and parallel computing procedures for the existing software and uses them for industrial purposes.

​

The RTU Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology has a wide experience in both education and research in the area of computer science, including artificial intelligence related projects, as well as modelling, high-performance simulation and visualization of complex systems. Members of the faculty take an active part in activities of international computer science societies, regularly participate in international events and projects.

​

Currently, RTU is the leading partner from Latvia in the EuroHPC competence centre project (EuroCC). Furthermore, RTU collaborates with the KTH through HPCEuropa3 transitional access program and together with the University of Tartu HPC Centre organize workshops and have a joint student team for cluster competition. In 2017, RTU re-engaged in closer cooperation with CERN which resulted in the establishment of CERN Baltic Group aimed at fostering joint HEP education, research and industry engagement.

​

RTU contributes to the development of AI- and HPC-Cross Methods (WP2) of RAISE to support the Compute- (WP3) and Data-Driven Use-Cases towards Exascale (WP4). It collaborates with Barcelona Supercomputing Center in the use-cases AI for wind farm layout optimization (WP3). Furthermore, RTU will work on the use-cases Event reconstruction and classification at the CERN HL-LHC (WP4) together with CERN.  RTU as the leader of Training and education services task in the Outreach and Services (WP6) work package will gather course portfolio information from other partners and provide access through RAISE’s website as educational service platform. RTU also contributes to Establishment of a European RAISE network (WP6) dissemination of relevant project information, including social media activities.