NCC Collaboration Archives - Page 5 of 7

11.02.2023.11.02.2023.

EuroCC2 & CASTIEL2 Kick-Off Conference

NCC Montenegro representative Sanja Nikolic, attended EuroCC2 & CASTIEL2 Kick-Off Conference held in Stuttgart, Feb 7th – 9th 2023. First day of the conference was reserved for the NCCs pitch-presentations, including brief introduction, key activities, collaboration opportunities and EuroCC2 goals.

EUROCC and CASTIEL teams introduced EUROCC2 project management framework, operative responsibilities and requested deliverables. Joint expectations in pursuing further HPC industry uptake were emphasized, with special regard to strategic cooperation between NCCs (acting as national HPC+ hubs), CoEs (Centres of Excellence – specialised in certain fields of HPC+ applications) and EDIHs (European Digital Hubs – supporting private & public companies in digital transformation).

Working Sessions were organized to support discussion on main project activities and goals in the task areas of Competences, Trainings, Industry and Communication; as well as to support immersive interaction and further networking of NCCs and CoEs representatives. Panel Discussions evolved around HPC+ best practices, following user-centric approach: 1) SME interaction issues; 2) Big Industry examples; 3) Public Sector initiatives and 4) Importance of Academic usage. Selected NCCs shared valuable insights and proven initiatives on increasing HPC+ awareness and adoption. In addition, two useful tools for strengthening industry interaction and companies’ outreach were presented: HPC4SME (Arctur, Slovenia) and Marketplace (Teratec, France).

EuroCC2 and CASTIEL2 will further “grow” on achievements of EUROCC/CASTIEL project, capitalizing on best practices and collaboration efforts of NCCs pan-European network, being further committed to promote and facilitate uptake of HPC and associated technologies HPDA, AI, Quantum Computing, across a various range of industries.

EuroCC2 and Castiel2 Kick-off group photo

28.12.2022.29.12.2022.

“Deep Learning and HPC” training successfully completed

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.

Making new AI breakthroughs with Graphcore IPU

28.12.2022.31.07.2023.

Appreciative feedback on Parallel Computing Course

Parallel Programming training course was organised by UDG and HPC NCC Montenegro in cooperation with NCC Germany, from 8^th November to 14^th 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.

09.12.2022.10.10.2023.

Participation of NCC Montenegro @ 3rd EUROCC/CASTIEL global conference

Sanja Nikolic, representative of HPC NCC Montenegro participated at 3rdEUROCC/CASTIEL global conference, organized with an aim of presenting of main results, key achievements and NCCs successful deliverables within EuroCC1 project phase.

EUROCC/CASTIEL representatives presented key highlights of EUROCC 1 project management with regard to Competence Map building; Training/Mentoring /Twinning activities; Industrial interaction support and Awareness Creation events and actions.

In the second part of the conference NCCs Finland, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Slovenia, Sweden and Turkey presented key achievements and EUROCC1 contributions in their respective working packages and selected project activities. NCC Montenegro presented multiple activities and overall results in the project segment related to HPC/HPDA/AI Trainings and Skills development.

30.11.2022.02.12.2022.

World-renowned professors and researchers gathered around “Deep Learning and HPC” training

University of Donja Gorica, EuroCC Montenegro (national competence center for supercomputers) and in cooperation with the National Center of Spain (NCC Spain) organize the course “Deep Learning and HPC”. Guest lecturers from renowned institutions such as the University of Cambridge, Universidad de Cantabria and Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, GraphCoreAI and Imperial College London, AI Clearing and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, DeepMind, Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, Max Planck Institute will be involved in the implementation of the training.

During this course students will learn how to implement deep learning models for real situations on their local machines, key mathematical concepts of deep learning, some key concepts about computer vision and natural language processing.

In the second part of the training, students will learn about high-performance computing in the development of deep learning applications, parallel computing using the Python language on multiple CPUs or GPUs, and the pyTorch library for developing deep learning models. The course starts with guest lectures at the end of November so you need to express your interest as soon as possible. The course is followed by students of the Master AI program at UDG, but also by students of other programs who express an interest in it. Lectures are open to academia, industry and the public sector.

Recommended prerequisites for successfully attending lectures are: good knowledge of algorithms and mathematics, knowledge of at least one programming language (Python is preferred), basic knowledge of high-performance computing (HPC), basic knowledge and interest in artificial intelligence, knowledge of the English language.

Media about us:

https://www.portalanalitika.me/clanak/svjetski-priznati-profesori-i-istrazivaci-okupljeni-oko-teme-duboko-ucenje-i-hpc-u-okviru-ncc-na-udg

https://www.cdm.me/drustvo/svjetski-priznati-profesori-i-istrazivaci-okupljeni-oko-teme-duboko-ucenje-i-hpc-u-okviru-ncc-na-udg/

30.11.2022.02.12.2022.

Meeting with NCC Luxembourg

HPC NCC Montenegro representatives Sanja Nikolic and Luka Filipovic organized initial meeting with colleagues from NCC Luxembourg (representatives of Luxinnovation – National Innovation Agency; LuxProvide – in charge of long-term operations of national supercomputer – MeluXina, and University of Luxembourg – providing HPC educational programs and training courses) and discussed cooperation possibilities and best practices sharing in the areas of industry engagement, MeluXina features/access opportunities and training programs.

With regard to industry cooperation, colleagues from NCC Luxemburg shared their experience and expertise related to business users engagement and MeluXina onboarding process, focusing on HPC needs and benefits, compute-intensive workloads, industry-centric use cases and business cases, supported by dedicated sales & engineering teams. Petascale supercomputer, MeluXina is enabling leading research (non-commercial access through Euro HPC Access Calls) and industrial applications (65% of dedicated resources), with very high security and data protection standards highly appreciated by their commercial users. University of Luxemburg is organizing HPC School and HPC-related Master and Doctoral programs, covering various training needs from beginners access to advanced lectures, on its own and MeluXina supercomputing infrastructure. They also successfully manage HPC community of around 1000 users/ 200 newcomers per year.

NCC Montenegro representatives provided short introduction on main activities and achievements. Based on productive meeting, industry potential discussion and elaborated skills development programs, NCC teams agree on further alignment on HPC+ Topics & Trainings of joint interest, in the context of EuroCC2 plans and 2023 roadmap.

29.11.2022.21.04.2023.

The way is open to building a EuroHPC world-class supercomputer in Greece

A hosting agreement has been signed between the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET) in Greece where DAEDALUS, a new EuroHPC supercomputer will be located. University of Donja Gorica is one of the partners in the implementation of the project.

Once procured, DAEDALUS will be a mid-range supercomputer, able to perform more than 30 petaflops or 30 million billion calculations per second. This new supercomputer will be managed and operated by GRNET, the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology in Greece. DAEDALUS will be installed in the historical 19th century Electric Power Station building in Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park and is expected to have an overall surface area of 1500 m2.

The supercomputer will power new applications in a wide range of areas, such as engineering, chemistry, health sciences and will be used to visualise and solve scientific problems. It will advance science and boost the innovation potential of enterprises while improving the European citizens’ quality of life.

DAEDALUS, at a total acquisition cost of EUR 33 million, will be co-funded with a maximum total budget of up to EUR 10 million by the EuroHPC JU (35%) and Greece (65% of national funds). Cyprus, Montenegro and North Macedonia are also involved in the project as members of the DAEDALUS consortium. This partnership is strategic for the European Union as it will support science and technology in the wider area of South-East Europe.

DAEDALUS Partners:

GRNET – National Infrastructures for Research and Technology, Greece Owner, operator, manager, coordinator
The Cyprus Institute, Cyprus: Participation in high-level support team
University of Donja Gorica, Montenegro: Participation in high-level support team
Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje Participation in high-level support team

Links for more details: