CONVECS
COmmuNity of the VEneto Region for Scientific Computing

Coesione Italia 21-27 Veneto
Co-funded by the European Union
Repubblica Italiana
Regione del Veneto
Project Infrastructure Dissemination Partners Contacts

Project

The project “CONVECS - COmmuNity of the VEneto Region for Scientific Computing” [ITA], launched in 2025 thanks to the collaboration of the leading universities in the Veneto Region with the support of regional funding, provides a High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure with the following primary objectives:

  • to increase the quality, quantity and competitiveness of advanced computing and connectivity services to meet the needs of the research community and enterprises in the Veneto Region and in accordance with the Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3);

  • to elaborate and develop innovative technological analyses and models;

  • to enhance professional and academic skills in Veneto universities;

  • to foster synergies in the world of research and entrepreneurship by pooling investments in this sector.

The project, through a special Temporary Association of Aims (ATS), implies a ‘Hub and Spoke’ architecture, where the Hub is the University of Padua (lead partner) and the Spokes are the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), the University of Verona, Ca' Foscari University of Venice and IUAV University of Venice.

CONVECS

Infrastructure

By integrating traditional multicore platforms with state-of-the-art Graphic Processing Units (GPUs), the CONVECS infrastructure is able to provide various services for non-interactive high-performance computing via job scheduling, virtual machines for cloud computing and remote desktop systems with preconfigured software for visualisation and analysis of big data.

Architecture

The entities involved in the project are interconnected by high-speed lines, and the adopted federal-type model allows each partner autonomy in managing local resources within a framework of transversal coordination and synergistic actions. The project promotes the enhancement and confederation of local nodes - computing, network, and storage infrastructures administered by the various partners, which are pooled in the CONVECS distributed infrastructure. Each entity manages its own local node while also using the nodes administered by the other participants.

Access to resources

According to the agreements regarding the sharing and use of the computer resources of the CONVECS project, access to each local node's resources is guaranteed for the internal staff of the managing entity, the staff of other participating entities, and external entities with the same levels of service and data security assured to local users, as well as the ability to support partnerships and computationally intensive research projects.
More information on how to access the resources will be published soon.

Dissemination

Public engagement actions include, but are not limited to, holding and participating in conferences, seminars, annual and periodic workshops, and other public events and disseminating the project's progress and results through various channels. 

Each partner promotes the infrastructure among its own researchers, fostering the use of computing resources and collaboration between the various research groups, and taking measures to acknowledge the project in scientific publications resulting from the use of CONVECS resources.

A training programme is planned that involves both researchers and technicians participating as trainees and trainers, aiming to encourage the sharing of expertise, enrich the training offerings, and foster collective skill development in using the CONVECS infrastructure.

Partners

Lead partner

Università degli Studi di Padova

Affiliates

Università di Verona
Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Università IUAV di Venezia
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)