The full title of this new project is “Building scientific and innovation potential to utilize HPC and AI for S3 Smart Specialisation in Montenegro – HPC4S3ME” and it is funded by the IPA II program, call reference EuropeAid/172-351/ID/ACT/ME.
The overall objective of HPC4S3ME project is to contribute to straightening research excellence by building scientific and innovation potential based on the use of high performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI) for applications in industrial domains proposed by the Smart Specialisation Strategy (2019-2024) for Montenegro. The implementation of this project will provide a state-of-the-art environment for young researchers to gain experience in research and development in computer science, more specifically to apply machine learning and deep learning algorithms supported by HPC in order to create innovative information-communication technology solutions for applications in agriculture and food value chain, health and tourism, energy and sustainable environment, namely the priority domains identified by the smart specialisation strategy. This is a two-year project and it starts in Jan 2023.
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.
HPC systemsMaking new AI breakthroughs with Graphcore IPU Deep Learning and Computer VisionIntroductionto GNNDeep Reinforcement LearningIntroduction to NLP Advanced NLP
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.
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.
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.
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.
NCC Luxembourg – NCC Montenegro meeting
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.
