Testimonials and thanks

CPCA Projects

Platforms used: Bob, Cirrus, Deucalion, Navigator, Oblivion, Vision and Stratus

• “The Cirrus:INCD platform of the RNCA was essential to carry out our numerical study of Unsteady Ventilation in rooms in a relatively short time. This is a computational heavy subject that will be almost impossible to perform using local resources.” Fernando Castro, Porto Higher Institute of Engineering
• “I am grateful for the opportunity to use RNCA's advanced computing resources for my research. The platform provided the computational power and flexibility needed to achieve significant results in ECG signal analysis.” Mehran Pourvahab, University of Beira Interior
• “INCD is a very good and robust platform with an excellent support team. This platform really helped us to get our project started and operationalise our very own virtual research environment (VRE). Congratulations to everyone doing such a great job at INCD.” João Guimarães, FMUL – University of Lisbon
• “Glad to have the opportunity to get in touch and work together with the IT team of Cirrus computer. They were always professional, providing help and specific documentation for the use of the HPC services. I am very satisfied with my collaboration under the FCT framework. I am looking forward to continue working with them.” Francisco J. Enguita, Institute of Molecular Medicine João Lobo Antunes & FMUL – University of Lisbon
• “I have used the platform for scientific computation. I have found plenty of tools installed like CMAKE, g++, intel libraries and compilers, Nvidia tools etc. I compiled my own project with Cmake and g++ compilers linked against intel MKL libraries. The building of program ran smoothly, and the computation as well. The simulations were starting almost immediately, but sometimes I had to wait a while. I have compiled and used successfully other libraries like MAGMA.” Euripides Sellountos, Center of Stochastics and Computational Mathematics (CEMAT), FCUL & IST – University of Lisbon
• “I am very pleased with the performance of the computing platform provided by the RNCA. The reliability of the system was exceptional, significantly contributing to my scientific research. The support team was always available and helpful, ensuring a smooth experience. This infrastructure was instrumental in obtaining the results to complete my master's student thesis. I am truly grateful for the RNCA's contribution to my academic and professional growth.” AND “I have applied to several CPCA calls, and the computational resources that I have been granted have been pivotal for my research. Without these I could not get the preliminary results required to apply for larger scientific funding. The platform is robust, reliable and the user-support team is very helpful, quick to reply, highly skilled and easily approachable. Please keep up with the fantastic work.”  Isabel Duarte, CINTESIS – University of Algarve
• “The access to Oblivion:HPC-UÉ platform and the CPU hours was crucial to achieving the main objectives of an important scientific collaboration with experimental researchers. The computational performance was essential to provide a quick insight into experiments already done. Otherwise, simulations will take more time than available to include the simulation results in the experimental work. Simulations provided significant information that improved the manuscripts to be published.” German Perez-Sanchez, University of Aveiro
• “The usage of these computing resources made our research possible within this time frame. We will keep on applying and using them. Computing power is among one of the scarcest resources for research in the quantum computing domain. I encourage RNCA to maintain this initiative and further increase available resources and support.” Luis P. Peixoto dos Santos, INESC TEC & University of Minho
• “We would like to thank very much the RNCA for the use of the Oblivion platform, which helped with our work. We would also like to equally thank very much the Oblivion team, especially Miguel Avillez for running the HPC so well. Additionally, all the informative emails on the running of Oblivion and all the courses offered are extremely useful.” Maria João Ramos, University of Porto
• “RNCA resources are fundamental to conduct our research on computational services and platforms and the underlining numerical model simulations. Access to resources is robust and user support works very well. The feedback from our users is very good and the research developed has facilitated our capacity to obtain international funding.” Anabela de Oliveira, LNEC – National Civil Engineering Laboratory
• "The RNCA (National Network for Advanced Computing) plays a pivotal role in supporting researchers across Portugal by providing access to high-performance computational resources. In today's research landscape, having the ability to perform complex computations, analyze large datasets, and run simulations is no longer a luxury-it is essential for producing competitive, cutting-edge results." Gabriel Martins, FCUL – University of Lisbon
• “The CPCA projects by RNCA and FCCN enable SMEs like blueOASIS to perform core research on Ocean Sustainability topics, keeping them at the forefront of technical innovation. All to Make the World Green and the Oceans Blue and Quiet.” Guilherme Vaz, blueOASIS CEO
• “Our team has greatly benefited from utilizing the cluster environment. Thanks to the invaluable support from the INCD team, we were able to efficiently execute all critical tasks related to CFD simulations, This collaboration significantly accelerated our calculations and greatly enhanced the quality and efficiency of our research outcomes.” Shan Wang, Center for Marine and Ocean Engineering and Technology (CENTEC), IST – University of Lisbon
• “The RNCA provides access to specialized high performing computing. It is a huge advancement compared to what you can achieve on your own. I am glad that such HPC infrastructure exists and every researcher can use it.” João Pedro Pêgo, University of Porto.
• “Thanks to RNCA and access to HPC resources, we were able to explore nonlinear dynamics in plasma physics that can only be observed through large-scale plasma simulations. This support was essential for uncovering new phenomena and advancing our understanding of extreme plasma environments.” Pablo J. Bilbao, Higher Technical Institute – University of Lisbon
• “Our A0 project in OBLIVION allowed us to perform genomic analysis of aging-related datasets that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to analyze to the same extent. We are grateful to all OBLIVION support team for their help.”
  Mafalda Galhardo – Institute of Research and Innovation in Health of the University of Porto (i3S)
• “I'm very grateful for the support provided by RNCA, which played an important role in advancing my research projects. The access to high-performance computing resources enabled efficient simulations and timely progress. I'm happy with the experience and highly recommend this infrastructure to other researchers in need of computational support.” Iuliia Voroshylova, LAQV-REQUIMTE
• "RNCA's Advanced Computing initiative provided essential infrastructure for our power grid optimization project, enabling a scalable and easily accessible environment for performing complex calculations. This type of resource is crucial for the innovation of a new technology ecosystem in the field of batteries and virtual power plants." Ricardo Rodrigues, DTx Colab – Digital Transformation CoLab

CPCA-IAC Projects 2022 and 2023

Platforms used: Google Cloud Platform

• “INESC-ID researchers harnessed AI-enhanced Google Cloud Platform hardware for accelerated bioinformatics searches. They achieved over 15x speedups on 16 GPUs using scalable parallel algorithms and developed Transformer DNNs for superior explainability, outperforming other neural networks by 5-30%.” Ricardo Nobre, Aleksandar Ilic, Leonel Sousa and Miguel Graça – INESC ID
• “Having during one year a 25000 dollar credit in Google Cloud Platform enabled me to work in several AI fields focusing on the scientific and technical challenges, not the financial ones. Vertex AI is a fantastic API that enabled us to experiment different LLMs with little or no extra investment to adapt our Java and JavaScript code. Thanks FCT, thanks Google, thanks to the researchers I worked with experimenting what is now possible with AI!” Francisco Reis – Freelancer, Umniverse R&D
• “Google Cloud Platform enabled us to experiment with AI tools like Vertex AI, Cloud Vision API, and Video Intelligence API, validating their potential for educational content automation. The AI2Learn project confirmed the value of Google AI solutions for innovative learning applications. We thank Google and FCCN for providing the resources that made this research possible.” Filipe Madeira – Research Center for Arts and Communication (CIAC), Santarém Polytechnique University

Last updated in August 2025