Skip to content
NAISS Logo
Allocations Support Training Software naiss.se

Welcome to the course: AI and HPC

Learning outcomes

After this course, you will

  • Be familiar with the history and context of deep learning
  • Be familiar with some of the principles of deep learning (backpropagation, training concepts)
  • Be familiar with some deep learning architectures (perceptron, DNN, CNN, recurrent, transformer)
  • Be familiar with PyTorch and master basic constructs
  • Be able to run simpler AI tasks
  • Be familiar with an instance of a hybrid HPC architecture (CPU+GPU)
  • Be familiar with different methods of parallelizing AI tasks
  • Master some aspects of running AI tasks on an HPC system
  • Be aware of some of the risks and implications of AI for society

Introduction

This course is a collaboration between Epicure and NAISS.

The term AI is nowadays often used interchangeably with Deep Neural Networks, a technology which is currently changing society as well as science and technology. There is a strong connection between AI and High Performance Computing (HPC) in that AI workloads often need to be, or are run on, HPC systems. Such workloads also turn out to be a particularly challenging application of HPC.

This hybrid (on location/online) course is at the beginners/intermediate level and is mainly intended for students familiar with HPC and in need of an introduction to Deep Learning and how to run AI workloads on HPC clusters. Some of the basic theory and models in deep learning will be covered as well as the techniques involved when running such models. The course includes practical exercises to deepen the understanding of the lectures. At the end of the course participants should be familiar with some of the concepts in deep learning, be able to run simple AI workloads and run them in parallel on an HPC system. The teaching language will be English.

Time and place

The course will be given June 3-5 at:

Salongen Osquars backe 31, Stockholm Room 2207, second floor KTH library KTH Campus

Online participation via Zoom is also available. The Zoom link will be emailed to registered participants.

Registration

To register, please fill in the registration form.

Deadline for registration is May 20:th.

Preliminary schedule

Day 1: Deep learning

Time Topic
09:00 Welcome and course overview
09:10 History of AI
09:45 Coffee break
10:00 Basic theory of neural networks
11:00 PyTorch
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Introduction to Dardel with Containers
14:00 Intro to hands-on session
14:30 Hands-on session
16:00 End of day

Day 2:

Time Topic
09:00 Convolutional neural networks
09:50 Break
10:00 Recurrent neural networks
11:00 Transformer models and LLMs
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Training techniques
14:00 Hands-on session
16:00 End of day

Day 3:

Time Topic
09:00 Architecture of HPC hardware for AI
09:50 Break
10:00 HPC system architecture and AI
11:00 Methods of parallelization
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Societal and philosophical issues with AI (AI safety)
14:00 Hands-on

Comments and questions

Comments and questions on these training events should be sent to NAISS using the support form in SUPR. Please select “Question about a training event” as “Problem or Questions Type”.

The NAISS support form in SUPR (on supr.naiss.se).