Towards SKA Regional Centres - the Portuguese case

SKA software development and prototyping work on the SKA Regional Centres will be bolstered by a new Centre of Competence in Advanced Computing.

Currently under commissioning, the centre is installed at the University of Aveiro (UA) in Portugal. The new centre is the result of a cooperation protocol signed on 9 November between UA and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) as part of the national strategy InCODe 2030, and was inaugurated in the presence of Manuel Heitor, Portugal’s Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education. This milestone will strengthen national scientific production in areas involving advanced digital skills, such as artificial intelligence and Big Data.

The Centre of Competence is part of the National Advanced Computing Network and acts as a gateway to its supercomputing centres, with the high storage capacity and state-of-the-art software and visualisation hardware for Big Data analysis. These capacities will be key ingredients to the prototype Portuguese SKA Regional Centre that is currently being developed by ENGAGE SKA researchers at UA. In the near future, the Centre will receive a strong boost from the European Commission.

The inauguration was followed by a presentation at Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) focusing on 5G, SKA and the local Software Bridging Teams and space science projects. “Aveiro has internationally recognised expertise in highly relevant areas, ranging from communications and security to Big Data and artificial intelligence,” said João Paulo Barraca, from IT and DETI-UA. “This centre opens new avenues to pursue first class science, and joint industry and academia innovation actions, as well as a stronger training environment to its alumni.”

By Domingos Barbosa and Sonia Antón (Instituto de Telecomunicações)