NEARDATA Meeting in Krakow: Advancing Near-Data Processing and Building the Future of Data-Driven Research
Sano Hosts NEARDATA Partners for Final Project Planning
Project Meeting at Sano
From June 10–12, 2025, the NEARDATA consortium gathered at the Sano Centre for Computational Medicine in Kraków to hold a key project meeting. The agenda focused on finalizing scientific achievements, refining tool integration, and coordinating the final stages of work within the consortium. Technical discussions covered advanced use cases for extreme near-data processing across cloud, HPC, and serverless computing environments.
A Cross-Sector Collaboration
The event reflected NEARDATA’s interdisciplinary nature, bringing together experts from leading universities, research centers, and technology companies across Europe. Participants included researchers from institutions such as TU Dresden and Universitat Rovira i Virgili, data scientists from public agencies like the UK Health Security Agency, and engineers from private-sector partners including Dell Technologies, KIO Networks España, and Scontain GmbH. The clinical dimension was represented by specialists from the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT Dresden), while the Barcelona Supercomputing Center contributed its renowned HPC expertise. With Sano hosting the event, Kraków served as a meeting point for specialists from across Europe working at the intersection of data-intensive research and technology.
Technical Outcomes and Shared Goals
During the three-day meeting, the consortium reviewed progress on key deliverables, coordinated final tool-chain integration efforts, and explored optimization of data processing pipelines. Use-case discussions demonstrated real-world implementations of near-data processing—particularly in biomedical and genomic domains—enabled by the project’s technological advances.
Strengthening Ties and Future Cooperation
The Krakow meeting was not only a checkpoint for technical alignment but also a platform for building long-term collaboration. Informal side sessions allowed participants to exchange research ideas and discuss possibilities for joint initiatives beyond the NEARDATA framework.
International Visibility and Impact
The consortium’s visibility also continues to grow internationally. Just weeks before the meeting, Piotr Kica, Scientific Programmer at Sano, represented the project at the 25th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Internet Computing (CCGrid 2025) in Tromsø, Norway. Together with Michał Orzechowski (Scientific Programmer) and Maciej Malawski (Director of Sano, Research Team Leader of Extreme-scale Data and Computing), he presented a serverless implementation of the STAR RNA-sequencing aligner, showcasing its scalability and cost-efficiency in AWS cloud environments.
Photo Highlights
Below, you’ll find a gallery of moments from the Krakow meeting — from brainstorming sessions and technical briefings to informal networking that brought consortium members closer together.
What’s Next for NEARDATA
With the project entering its final months, the Krakow meeting reinforced both the scientific rigor and the collaborative spirit that have driven NEARDATA since its inception. The team now moves forward with final deliverables and plans for post-project knowledge dissemination and practical application of developed tools.
