Croatian Company leveraging NCC and EDIH services: From education and call Playground to MareNostrum 5

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This is an excellent example of how strategic support from national and European initiatives can accelerate innovation, drive digital transformation, and show the way to world-class computing infrastructure—ultimately strengthening the competitiveness of Croatian enterprises.

While the founders of Crobotic Solutions were finishing their studies at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (University of Zagreb), Srce hosted the newly established start-up at the Croatian HPC Competence Centre Day in November 2024. Organised by Srce as part of the NCC Croatia activities, the event invited Crobotic Solutions as a best-practice case study to present its work to key stakeholders in the HPC ecosystem.

Crobotic Solutions is a young Croatian company developing software solutions for robotic platforms, including AI-driven applications. Already then, they emphasised the need and interest in utilising the potential of supercomputers to experiment with and evaluate the use of different AI agents for robotic applications.

The collaboration between NCC Croatia and Crobotic Solutions continued in 2025 when Srce, as one of the partners of the EDIH CROBOHUB++ project, guided them toward the services offered under this initiative aimed at boosting the digital maturity of SMEs. Through CROBOHUB++, the company gained access to a wide range of technical and advisory services that guided its way to European calls and advanced computing infrastructure. 

Among these, the team attended the “HPC Education for Entrepreneurs” workshop delivered by Srce experts during the Croatian HPC Competence Centre Day. Another crucial service was Srce’s support in accessing HPC resources. Several consultations were held to define which supercomputer best matched their needs and to prepare a proposal for the EuroHPC JU call. The result: a successful application for access to the European supercomputer MareNostrum 5, hosted at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre in Spain.

Since April 2025, this opportunity has been available to all SMEs, as the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) simplified access mechanisms through its AI Factory initiative. This includes:

  • Playground Access for beginners,
  • Fast Lane Access for experienced users with up to 50,000 GPUh, and
  • Large Scale Access for projects requiring more than 50,000 GPUh.

Access is completely free of charge, designed to strengthen European industrial innovation.

In this case, Crobotic Solutions applied through Playground Access, an entry-level model for testing AI concepts. As co-founder Filip Zorić explains:

“The EuroHPC JU application process is very straightforward—we completed it in just a few hours. We provided a short project description, introduced our team, signed a code of conduct, and attached a sample of source code. The evaluation was incredibly fast—less than 48 hours.”

The company selected MareNostrum 5 due to its extensive NVIDIA GPU capabilities, which significantly accelerated their research and development. 

Today, Crobotic Solutions is running three additional projects, all funded through national and European programs:

  • IzzyTwist – under HAMAG-BICRO’s Acceleration Activity Strengthening call, developing a web-based graphical interface for simpler robot arm control, bringing robotics closer to end users in industry and education.
  • DemoMotion – under the Proof of Concept (PoC) call, exploring motion mapping technologies to replicate human movement using robot arms based on visual data, combining computer vision and robotics.
  • AutoPilot NDT – part of the European HORIZON AUTOASSESS challenge, focusing on autonomous drones for ballast tank inspection. Crobotic Solutions is developing a web interface with autonomous features for remote control and monitoring of inspection processes.

Thanks to the support of Srce, NCC Croatia, and EDIH CROBOHUB++, Crobotic Solutions now fully harnesses the benefits of digital transformation and European innovation mechanisms. Beyond access to supercomputers and technical expertise, they are also unlocking new funding opportunities through national agencies such as HAMAG-BICRO and European initiatives like HORIZON Europe and EuroHPC JU.