R&D centre operates in Poznań and tests innovative solutions concerning networks and digital and communications technologies.
TEN YEARS AGO, the world went into raptures over the technology of high definition image display. Yet the world did not include the scientists at the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) affiliated to the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences. They were already working on equipment to enable image display in 4K resolution. Today, 4K is becoming popular in households, but is not the subject of studies at the PSNC. Not any more. Now, the researchers there are working on 8K 3D technology. For the purpose of their studies, they established an experimental cinema at the PSNC. It is equipped with innovative projectors and cameras, which record images in this resolution (following special modifications introduced by Sony for the needs of the PSNC). Its screen displays three-dimensional 8K videos.
The experimental cinema is one of several dozen specialist labs at the PSNC. These include a medical laboratory with telemedicine equipment and labs where new user interfaces are developed. ‘We are a research and development centre for information and communication technologies. Our mission and our objective involve everything where the Internet meets various sectors of the economy,’ says Damian Niemir, Public Relations Manager at the PSNC. ‘We are trying to be one step ahead in that we study technologies that will soon be applied in commercial products,’ he adds.
Various Areas of Activity
The PSNC began its activity with projects involving supercomputer calculations and online networks. Over time, the center expanded its activity to other areas. Today, it is involved in work on the new media, Industry 4.0, energy efficiency, smart cities, intelligent agriculture and forestry as well as space technology, but also e-government or cultural heritage. It cooperates with major industry actors as well as SMEs and start-ups. For instance, it participated in the German-Italian-Spanish project EVER-EST, in which data about the Earth useful e.g. for geologists or seismologists were gathered. In Fit4Work, the PSNC together with its partners from the Netherlands, Spain, Slovenia and Romania are working on an IT solution for professionally active seniors. In addition, it has created innovation centres in cooperation with Microsoft and Huawei.
Moreover, the Poznań Center belongs to the consortium that runs Euratom’s nuclear fusion programme.
Multidisciplinary Approach
In the course of more than 25 years of the PSNC’s existence, it has been engaged in the completion of over 200 research projects, including more than 40 in the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020. ‘We are trying to combine technologies based on engineering, in which we specialise, with other disciplines. For example, we wonder how clouds, the technology of which we are developing, could be applied in medicine. Or how the PSNC could help in art&science with its expertise in biometrics or motion capture,’ Niemir explains.
Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center affiliated to the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences
