About
The CATIA Centre was established in 2004 at the Georgian Academy of Sciences as the successor to the CAD/CAM Engineering Centre. A new scientific research group, xrLab, was established at Business and Technology University under the leadership of Alexander Sharmazanashvili in 2026.
The Centre was founded through the joint efforts of four institutions—the Georgian Academy of Sciences (GAS), the Georgian Technical University (GTU), Tbilisi State University (TSU), and Georgia & Georgia Ltd., together with distinguished Georgian scientists, including Academician Albert Tavkhelidze, Academician Nodar Amaglobeli, and Academician Ramaz Khurodze.
The primary objective of the CATIA Centre was to establish and strengthen collaboration with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland.
Cooperation with CERN began in 2004 through participation in the construction and installation of the ATLAS detector in partnership with the ATLAS Technical Coordination team. Between 2005 and 2010, the Centre successfully completed four collaborative projects with CERN and ATLAS, involving several research groups. During this period, collaborative agreements were also established with Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany) and Schulz Engineering (Germany).
In 2008, the ATLAS Collaboration formally acknowledged the CATIA Centre's significant contribution to the development of the first 3D model database of the ATLAS detector based on the CATIA V5 platform. This achievement required 31 months of dedicated work and approximately 13,000 man-hours by the Centre's specialists. In support of this effort, the ATLAS Collaboration allocated 172,000 CHF for the employment of CATIA Centre personnel.
The CATIA Centre actively engaged talented students from GTU and TSU, providing specialized training courses and supervising master's and doctoral research projects. The Centre also participated extensively in CERN workshops, scientific weeks, and international conferences.
Through its collaborative work packages, the CATIA Centre established partnerships with leading international institutions, including Stanford University (USA), the University of Louisville (USA), Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (United Kingdom), DAPNIA-CEA Saclay (France), and the Institute of Physics Freiburg (Germany).
