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In the first quarter of 2025, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek (FERIT) at the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek conducted the annual survey “The Croatian landscape of education in the fields of HPC, HPDA and AI” as part of the project “National Competence Centres in the framework of EuroHPC Phase 2 – EuroCC 2”. The survey aimed to create a more detailed landscape of educational and training needs and opportunities, and to identify competencies and the demand for new educational content in the mentioned fields for institutions and companies in Croatia.
A total of 57 participants from various parts of Croatia responded to the questionnaire, of which 37% were from educational and research institutions, 26% from small and medium-sized industry, 23% from public institutions, and 14% from large industry. Compared to the 2024 survey, where all industrial participants were grouped, this year’s survey categorised them based on company size, small and medium-sized industry (up to 250 employees) and large industry (more than 250 employees). This categorisation influenced the overall composition of the survey participants. As a result, compared to the 2024 survey, the total number of participants increased by seven, with a decrease in responses from the industrial sector and an increase in responses from educational and research, and public institutions.
Each of the three sections of the questionnaire began with a question on the relevance of the specific field (HPC, HPDA, or AI) to the respondent’s work and a question on educational activities, where participants could offer and/or request training. The same structure was followed for a total of 53 specific topics, representing an increase of 17 topics compared to the 2024 survey. These additions were based on suggestions made by previous respondents when relevant topics were missing. Most of the newly added topics belonged to the field of AI, confirming the ongoing trend of high interest in this field.
Among the newly introduced AI topics, the most in-demand were: “Data preparation and handling”, “Large language models”, “Ethical issues and regulations in the application of artificial intelligence”, “Copilots”, and “Security in AI-based systems”. Among previously listed topics, “Elements of Artificial Intelligence” and “Frameworks for Deep Learning” remained highly sought-after, as they were in 2024. In the field of HPDA, the most requested topics included: “Introduction to Big data”, “HPDA for fraud and anomaly detection”, “Big data analysis and data stream processing”, and “Cloud computing”, the same ones that were in high demand in the 2024 survey. In the HPC field, participants mostly expressed interest in training related to Croatian and European HPC infrastructures and resources, particularly the topics: “Croatian HPC infrastructure usage”, “Croatian HPC resources: Supek and Vrančić”, and “EuroHPC”, which were also among the top interests in 2024. Other notable topics included “Green computing” and “Energy efficiency of high-performance computing systems”.
The analysis of the collected data generally showed a higher demand than supply of educational activities, emphasising the importance of the Croatian Competence Centre for HPC (NCC Croatia) in organising training initiatives. While educational and research institutions, as well as industry, can offer training on certain topics, they mostly act as requesters. Public institutions, on the other hand, almost exclusively request training and do not offer it. Across all three fields, there are topics for which there is significant interest, but no training is currently being offered or is offered insufficiently. These include, for example, “Quantum computer simulators”, “Quantum computing”, and “Copilots”, which are among the newly proposed topics from the 2024 survey.
The results of this analysis will serve as a basis for organizing tailored educational and training activities. Most of these will be delivered at educational and research institutions in cooperation with industry, while some topics will be addressed in collaboration with National Competence Centres and Centres of Excellence from other countries participating as project partners.
For all workshop and training announcements, please visit the website: https://www.hpc-cc.hr/ and https://hpc-portal.eu/ .