Jiří Filipovič from CERIT-SC at Masaryk University’s Institute of Computer Science will lead the new COST Action AutoPEAC, bringing together European experts in software autotuning, performance optimization, and energy efficiency. The proposal was selected in a strong international competition.
The four-year COST Action AutoPEAC – Autotuning for Performance-Portable and Energy-Efficient Applications and Computing will build a European network of researchers, developers and computing centres working on autotuning. The initiative aims to bring greater consistency to currently fragmented tools and approaches, align data formats and evaluation methods, strengthen education and training, and make autotuning easier to adopt in real-world scientific and industrial applications.
It will also explore closer integration between autotuning, high-level programming environments and emerging AI-based approaches.
“Autotuning can make software faster while also reducing the energy needed to run it. Even a ten-percent performance improvement can make a real difference when institutions spend tens or hundreds of millions of Czech crowns on computing infrastructure, says Filipovič.”
Rather than funding research projects directly, COST Actions focus on building international research networks. They support activities such as workshops, working meetings, summer schools, short-term scientific missions and the development of shared methodologies and training materials.
For Masaryk University and its Institute of Computer Science, leading AutoPEAC creates new opportunities to strengthen international cooperation and develop follow-up research projects. It will also open up valuable opportunities for PhD students and early-career researchers, including research stays, summer schools and collaboration with leading European institutions.
Jiří Filipovič
works at the Institute of Computer Science of Masaryk University, where he leads a research group focused on High Performance Computing. His research primarily focuses on automatic software performance optimisation, autotuning, GPU acceleration, and the development of computationally intensive applications for scientific use, including applications in computational chemistry and biology.
He also serves as a supervisor and lecturer at the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University. In 2021, he received the MUNI Scientist Award for outstanding research achievements.
Jiří Filipovič from Masaryk University’s Institute of Computer Science has now succeeded as the main proposer of a new COST Action that will connect European experts in autotuning. In this interview, he explains why existing tools need to be better aligned, what the network can offer early-career researchers, and how computer game development first led him into science.
Generative AI is no longer just an experiment for enthusiasts at Masaryk University. Students use it in their studies, teachers in preparing their courses, and researchers when working with texts, data and code. Most of us are already familiar with Microsoft Copilot, an assistant integrated into the Microsoft 365 environment.
