The 2nd HUN-REN Cloud Meetup took place in the ballroom of the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Network on November 13, 2025. 60 people graced the event with their presence on site, but a large number also joined remotely. The main organiser of this year’s edition was HUN-REN SZTAKI.
The program of the annual HUN-REN Cloud event was divided into four sections. In the opening section, after the welcome speech of Katalin Sebők, HUN-REN Deputy CEO for Strategy and Innovation, Dr Róbert Lovas, Deputy Director of HUN-REN SZTAKI and Program Director of HUN-REN Cloud, welcomed the attendees. Péter Szegedi arrived in Budapest from the European Commission’s DG CONNECT department, where he works as a policy officer. In his presentation, he showed how the principles of Open Science are implemented in a European digital infrastructure. The session was closed by a talk by Gergely Sipos, who leads the Services, Solutions and Support department at the EGI Foundation. He outlined where the HUN-REN Cloud is located in the international ecosystem.
The focus of the next session was on one of the most challenging areas of our time, Artificial Intelligence. After the presentation of AI4science and AI1Science, we were able to see the diverse applicability of AI. By using AI and the research cloud together, DNA sequencing metadata can be standardised, self-driving robots can be developed, neural language models can be fine-tuned, and even the analysis of native language data structures can be realised.
During the afternoon sessions, HUN-REN Cloud users reported on their projects and experiences in the following application areas: chemistry, weather forecasting, astronomy, biotechnology and machine learning.
After the presentations, cloud users with various scientific backgrounds discussed the future vision of HUN-REN Cloud and the challenges it faces in a roundtable discussion.
The program was concluded with closing remarks by Professor Péter Lévai, Director General of the Wigner Research Center for Physics.
Based on the feedback and discussions, it is clear that the new leadership of the research network has an increasingly strong intention to support and commit to the HUN-REN Cloud, as it is a collaboration that is unique within the network: it has an extensive history of collaboration between institutes. It demonstrates b significant international visibility and the ability to attract funds, and serious domestic recognition -- moreover, it is constantly renewed in accordance with new trends, which was demonstrated jointly by HUN-REN SZTAKI and HUN-REN Wigner, who operate the Hungarian Science Cloud together.
The organizers are looking forward to welcoming members of the cloud community to their next annual event in 2026.
