The Academic and Educational Grid Initiative of Serbia was launched in 2005, and currently has 20 member institutions. AEGIS is an umbrella organization that coordinates efforts to: develop academic and educational HPC facilities in Serbia integrating them into a joint infrastructure; organize dissemination and training; facilitate wider participation in relevant international projects; coordinate joint fund raising; and lobby for the position of the new technology within Serbia’s overall research agenda.
In 2006 SCL-IPB and three other IPB research units awarded EU Centre of Excellence grants successfully lobbied the Serbian Government to make the upgrade of National S&T infrastructure an integral part of the ambitious National Investment Plan. Since this upgrade SCL-IPB Grid resources have accounted for about 60% of the overall Grid e-Infrastructure of South East Europe.
On 12 November 2008 Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic launched the National supercomputing Initiative. The seven-year, 14 million euro project proposed by SCL-IPB will be jointly funded from National and EU sources. The launch coincided with the start of SCL-IPB membership in PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe). IPB was designated as the referent institution for implementation and development of HPC in Serbia, and the host of the Blue Danube supercomputing center.
The Academic Partnership between IPB and IBM has resulted from the identified need for joint collaboration towards the realization of key research, developmental and educational aspects of the National supercomputing initiative. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 9 June 2009 in the presence of representatives of the Ministry of science and technological development.
