Fortissimo Success Stories: HPC-Powered Innovation for European Industry
The Fortissimo projects initiative, along with its successor projects Fortissimo, Fortissimo-2, FF4EuroHPC and now FortissimoPlus (FFplus), has played a pivotal role in democratising access to High-Performance Computing (HPC) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe in the past decade. These projects, supported by the European Commission and funded under respective programmes (FF, FF-2 under I4MS, FF4EuroHPC and FFplus under EUROHPC JU), have enabled European SMEs, which have no prior experience with HPC, to tackle complex technical challenges by integrating advanced simulation, data analytics, and lately artificial intelligence into their innovation workflows.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe have participated in the Fortissimo Open Calls, which were launched as part of a cascading funding scheme. SMEs with promising ideas submitted proposals and, if successfully evaluated, received funding to carry out their projects. These were implemented through 15-month-long Business Experiments, developed within consortia of partners working together to design or optimise innovative products and solutions using High-Performance Computing (HPC) and AI.
If a Business Experiment was successfully completed and delivered measurable results, it was transformed into a Fortissimo Success Story.
At the core of this initiative are these success stories—real-world case studies that highlight how SMEs have harnessed the power of HPC to develop breakthrough technologies, accelerate innovation, improve operational efficiency, and gain a competitive edge. Most importantly, these stories bring to the forefront the tangible business benefits achieved during the experiments.
Each story has been carefully documented and shared through various formats, including website articles, promotional flyers, digital and printed booklets, video presentations.
The goal? To promote the valuable work carried out by SMEs and inspire the wider European industrial community by demonstrating what’s possible with access to advanced digital tools.
To date, 121 success stories have been produced in collaboration with 310 partners from over 20 European countries, showcasing real impact across diverse sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing, energy, mobility, and the environment.
FF4EUROHPC Success Stories
In this post, we spotlight three outstanding examples from the FF4EuroHPC project, each demonstrating how cloud-based HPC has enabled transformative progress in mission-critical domains.
Explore all Fortissimo Success Stories here.
1. Cloud-Based HPC Platform to Support Systemic-Pulmonary Shunting Procedures
Partners: InSilicoTrials Technologies, RBF Morph, RINA Consulting, CINECA
Clinical Challenge:
Systemic-to-pulmonary shunting is a high-risk surgical procedure commonly used to treat newborns with congenital heart defects. The decision-making process is particularly complex due to the unique cardiovascular physiology of each patient and the need for timely intervention.
HPC-Enabled Solution:
This experiment developed a cloud-based HPC simulation platform that enables clinicians to perform personalised Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses of a patient’s cardiovascular system within just a few hours. By digitally simulating various surgical configurations, the platform supports evidence-based planning for systemic-to-pulmonary shunting procedures.
Benefits
InSilicoTrials Technologies: Reach new clients by selling a single service per clinical use after the achievement of software certification (mid-2024), generating an increase in annual turnover of about €450,000 after 4 years.
Clinicians: Improve surgery outcome, reducing hospitalization per patient by 5-6 days on average. In the case of FTGM, savings of more than €100,000 per year are expected.
RBF Morph: Expected increased annual turnover 4 years after the project is €250,000 with the increase of 2 qualified jobs/year.
RINA Consulting: The overall expected increased annual turnover 4 years after the project: €200,000.
CINECA: Additional business as HPC supplier (€30,000 by 2026).
2. HPC-Based Navigation System for Efficient Marine Litter Collection
Partners: Green Tech Solution SRL, Università degli Studi di Napoli Parthenope, BI-REX, CINECA
Environmental Challenge:
Marine litter, especially floating plastic waste, threatens marine ecosystems and coastal economies. Efficient removal is hindered by the dynamic and unpredictable movement of debris influenced by wind, currents, and tides.
HPC-Enabled Solution:
This project developed a real-time, HPC-driven decision support system that integrates oceanographic simulations, wind forecasts, and satellite data to predict the drift patterns of marine litter. The system provides navigational recommendations to vessels engaged in litter collection, significantly improving operational efficiency.
Benefits
Improving the sustainability of GTS.
An estimated 60% reduction in energy consumption of vehicle batteries used per km2 of operation.
A reduction of 80% in time-to-planning (ca. 3 hours vs ca. 30 minutes per mission), 50% in time-to-recovery (30 minutes vs 15 minutes ca. per mission) and 40% in maintenance costs (€10,000 /year vs €6,000 /year).
A price for services of €2,000-3,000 per km of road (main competitors are around €7,000).
Market expansion outside Italy, reaching 2,000 km of EU coastline served (Greece, Spain and Norway) in the next 5-6 years.
3. High-Fidelity Modeling for the Optimization of Small Wind Turbines
Partners: FEAC Engineering P.C., EUNICE Wind S.A.
Engineering Challenge:
Small wind turbines offer a decentralized solution for renewable energy generation, but their performance is highly sensitive to variable wind conditions. Traditional design and testing processes are time-consuming and costly for SMEs.
HPC-Enabled Solution:
The experiment implemented a high-fidelity aerodynamic simulation workflow using cloud-based HPC infrastructure. This allowed the SME to analyze and optimize turbine blade geometries and control strategies across a wide range of wind scenarios—without the need for physical prototyping.
Benefits
• Tests by HPC simulation could reduce the testing costs by up to 83% compared to a typical physical test installation.
• Increased competitiveness with faster design cycles and lower operational expenditure, which leads to higher levelized cost of electricity.
• Assist the European Commission directives towards a green and sustainable future.
Conclusion
These success stories underscore the transformative power of accessible HPC services for innovation-driven SMEs. By providing cloud-based, scalable computing resources tailored to real-world industrial problems, the Fortissimo ecosystem has fostered a new wave of digital transformation across Europe’s various industrial sectors.
To explore more success stories and discover how HPC can empower your innovation journey, visit:
Fortissimo Project
FF4EuroHPC
FortissimoPlus