National Competence Centre for High-Performance Computing
MAIA – Montenegrin AI Association is a Non-Governmental organization, founded in September 2022 with an ambition to bring together the Montenegrin AI community. Our goal is to popularize Artificial Intelligence related research and spread awareness of its importance in our country, but also encourage our society to join the fast wave of AI innovation in the World. Several NCC Montenegro team members are taking part in this initiative. Check MAIA website for more details at the following link.
The University of Donja Gorica (UDG), EuroCC Montenegro (national competence center for supercomputers) in cooperation with the National Center of Spain (NCC Spain) organized the course “Deep Learning and HPC”. Guest lecturers from renowned institutions such as Petar Veličković from the University of Cambridge and DeepMind (Introduction to Graph Neural Network), Borja Pavon from Universidad de Cantabria and Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (High-Performance Computing systems), Sergio Perez from Graphcore and Imperial College London (Making new AI breakthroughs with Graphcore IPU), Itana Bulatović from AI Clearing and Shanghai Jiao Tong University China (Deep Learning for Computer Vision), Andreea Deac from Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (Deep Reinforcement Learning), Aleksa Šuković from Max Planck Institute (Advanced NLP), Nikola Bulatović from University of Montenegro and Uhura (Introduction to NLP), were involved in the implementation of the training. These classes are organized online for all interested participants.
During this training, we had 30 to 35 active participants from the start to the end of the course. The first and last classes were organized by teachers from UDG and NCC Montenegro (Stevan Čakić and Stevan Šandi) in person for students from UDG (Introduction to Deep Learning, Deep Learning for HPC, Deep Learning with Business and Ethics in AI). The course was mandatory for students of the master’s program Artificial Intelligence as an integral part of the course Deep Learning.
Parallel Programming training course was organised by UDG and HPC NCC Montenegro in cooperation with NCC Germany, from 8th November to 14th of December 2022. The training was dedicated both to companies interested in the parallel programming skills and to students eager to learn on theoretical basis and practical features of parallel computing, with 54 attendees registered in total. Program course covered: Concepts of parallel computers – purpose, architecture, division; Practical guidelines for the development of parallel programs based on the architecture of shared and distributed memory as well as on the hybrid model; Analysis of the performance of parallel programs including decomposition of serial program and transformation into parallel programs. Beside the theoretical part, the training also included practical examples, use cases and hands-on exercises that allowed participants to apply and test their parallel programming knowledge on supercomputing systems/HPC-working environment. Participants learned to identify parallelization problem, analyse parallel programs complexity and efficiency, and develop simple parallel program, with dedicated support of academic professors and HPC experts dr Luka Filipovic from NCC Montenegro and lecturers from The Leibniz Computing Center, NCC Germany.
After the training, survey forms were sent out to regular participants, revealing interesting statistics on training activity, industry appeal and further expectations.
Regarding academic participants, this was an obligatory course for students of the MSc program Artificial Intelligence, but also 1/3 of students came from Engineering and IT faculty level programs. Regarding industry participants, the majority were coming from the ICT sector, with working experience up to 5 years (but also 38% with 15+ years).
Decision to attend Parallel Programming course was dominantly influenced by: 1) personal interest in developing parallel computing skills, 2) possibility to obtain practical experience and 3) engagement of international and experienced lecturers.
With regard to level of complexity, the majority of participants considered the program course demanding, but successfully managed. With regard to teaching program and course organisation, 65% and 71% of participants evaluated them with the highest grade, respectively. With regard to communication with lecturers, knowledgeable answers and useful consultations were highly appreciated. 86% of surveyed participants confirmed that the training course fully or mostly met their expectations.
Being asked what they liked the most about the course, participants stated: hands-on approach, practical examples, expertise of lecturers and open source application used by NCC in Germany. And when it comes to possible improvements, focus was on providing more practical examples and tasks. Over 70% participants would be further interested in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning training opportunities, and all industry representatives confirmed interest in potential cooperation with UDG on project activities.
The general aim of the training course was to increase the parallel programming skills in Montenegro, but also to promote EuroCC projects and supercomputing resources, and to encourage HPC-based project ideas and partnerships.
University of Donja Gorica, NCC Montenegro and NCC Spain are organizing course “Deep Learning and HPC”. During this course, students will learn how to implement deep learning models for real applications on local machines, key mathematical concepts of deep learning, some key concepts about computer vision and natural language processing. n the second part of training, students will be familiarized to high-performance computing in deep learning application development, parallel computing with Python on multiple CPUs or GPUs, pyTorch library for developing deep learning models.
The talks from visiting lecturers start on 30 November, so it is needed to express your interest as soon as possible. Course is open to academia, industry and public sector. Link for online registration is available here.
Recommended requirements and background:
The Agenda is now available at the following link.
The Parallel Programming course has begun at the University of Donja Gorica, with more than 50 registered participants, organized as part of EuroCC project activities focused on the development of HPC and parallel programming skills and competencies.
In front of National Competence Center for High Performance Computing (HPC NCC), mr Sanja Nikolić introduced the course participants to supercomputer systems and applications, especially from the aspect of their commercial application and digital transformation of business models towards innovative processes and products to improve industrial competitiveness. She also presented the EuroHPC Joint Undertakingthe , whith budget of € 7 bn for the improvement of the HPC ecosystem in Europe through the Digital Europe and Horizon Europe programs, and through projects such as EURO CC, which focus is on the development of National Competence Centers in the field of high-performance computing, as reference point for coordination of all national HPC activities and access to Eurpean supercomputing resources. The activities of NCC Montenegro were also presented, focusing on HPC/HPDA/AI research and development, competence mapping, education and trainings, as well as on examples of successful cooperation with representatives of industry, academia and public sector resulted in HPC-advanced business practices.
Assistant professor dr Luka Filipović instructed attendees in the technical aspects and configuration of the HPC systems, parallel and distributed computer systems and presented in detail the plan of the theoretical and practical part of the parallel programming course intended for high-performance computing. Within the course program, lasting 6 weeks, the concepts of parallel computers, their purpose, architecture, division, guidelines for the development of parallel programs, as well as the analysis of the performance of parallel programs will be duly explained. In the practical part, the development of parallel programs based on the architecture of shared and distributed memory and based on the hybrid model will be demonstrated by respective examples. The lectures will be held in cooperation with colleagues from the HPC National Competence Center of Germany.
The Parallel Programming course is attended by representatives of the industrial sector and interested students of regular, master and doctoral studies of all universities, who will receive a corresponding certificate upon successful completion. Students of the Master’s program Artificial Intelligence from the Faculty of Information Systems, UDG will present their seminar papers at the end of the course.
As the first year of the new Master program in Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty for Information Systems and Technologies, University of Donja Gorica, is behind us a second generation has been enrolled. They will be attending courses on Mathematics, Data science, Digital transformation, Advanced programming, History of ideas, Research methodology.
Our first generation students worked hard both in theoretical and practical aspects of the curriculum. Some of the students took part in research projects and some have already presented their first papers at scientific-technical conferences. This year the will be attending Deep Learning and Parallel Computing courses that will be implemented with the support of NCC Montenegro and partners from EuroCC.
Within the Next Castiel training, a member of NCC Montenegro, Ass. professor Armin Alibasic will take part with the topic, “How to engage younger students, including high schools, on HPC”. Through the training, Armin will bring to the attention of all the methods and techniques used by NCC Montenegro, to bring a topic that was almost unknown to the general public, especially to young people, and develop certain knowledge and skills in them.
