Category: Supercomputing

Categories
Interactive HPC Supercomputing Tutorial UCloud Webinars & Tutorials - video Workshop

Webinar recording: Fine-Tuning and Deploying  Large Language Models

In this video we will guide you through the complete pipeline of fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) for specialised tasks such as medical question-answering using NeMo Framework and Triton Inference Server.

  • Prepare and preprocess open-source datasets for fine-tuning.
  • Apply Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT) using LoRA with NVIDIA NeMo Framework.
  • Deploy optimised LLMs using NVIDIA Triton Inference Server and TensorRT-LLM.
  • Generate a synthetic Q&A dataset using Label Studio connected to a live inference backend.
  • Fine-tune and evaluate your customised LLM for domain-specific applications.

All workflows will be executed inside a UCloud project environment with access to GPU resources.

Target audience: Machine learning practitioners, researchers, and engineers interested in LLM customisation, domain adaptation, or scalable model deployment.

Technical Level: Intermediate to Advanced.

Notebooks: https://github.com/emolinaro/ucloud-workshop-28-05-2025

Categories
Application Interactive HPC Supercomputing Teaching Tutorial Webinars & Tutorials - video

Webinar recording: UCloud courses hands-on

In this video we will go through the process of developing a course on UCloud, using UCloud Courses – a tool for hosting and managing university courses on UCloud. Want to know more about this new feature, check out our webinar recording introducing UCloud Courses.

Introduction

00:00 – Outline of the workshop agenda
03:10 – Introduction to the UCloud Courses concept
04:23 – Advantages of using UCloud Courses
05:56 – Outline of the steps involved in developing a UCloud Course
09:54 – Requesting and planning a UCloud Course
10:20 – Example of the planning and structuring of an existing UCloud Course

Developing a UCloud Course step by step

Setting up the environment
15:53 – Preliminary remarks
17:15 – Showing the existing UCloud Course that will be re-developed in the workshop
18:02 – Showing the UCloud-Courses GitHub repository
18:40 – Software requirements and -recommendations
20:22 – Short introduction to Git and GitHub
24:27 – Cloning the repository
25:15 – Creating a working branch
26:12 – What should go in the UCloud-Courses repository and what shouldn’t
27:24 – Installing the required dependencies

Creating a new UCloud Course and modifying the templates
28:00 – Creating a UCloud Course using a prepared script
30:31 – Walk-through of the different auto-generated files/folders in the course folder
33:35 – Short introduction to Docker
38:15 – Modifying the Dockerfile
42:32 – What should go in the UCloud-Courses repository and what shouldn’t
45:28 – Building the Docker image locally using a prepared script
47:54 – Modifying the starting script
01:00:50 – What can, shouldn’t, and mustn’t be changed while the course is running

Building and testing the course locally
01:05:00 – Re-building the Docker image locally using a prepared script
01:05:25 – Running a Docker container locally using a prepared script
01:10:58 – Opening the JupyterLab interface on localhost

Finalising the course app
01:12:48 – Opening a pull request and requesting code review
01:19:44 – Testing the course app on UCloud before it’s deployed

Closing remarks

01:25:44 – Reusing/updating an existing UCloud course
01:28:19 – The financial model in brief
01:29:38 – Useful links and resources

UCloud-Courses GitHub repository:
https://github.com/SDU-eScience/UCloud-Courses

README in the UCloud-Courses GitHub repository:
https://github.com/SDU-eScience/UCloud-Courses/blob/main/README.md

Wiki page in the UCloud-Courses GitHub repository:
https://github.com/SDU-eScience/UCloud-Courses/wiki

The UCloud course app redeveloped in the workshop (UCloud login required):
https://cloud.sdu.dk/app/jobs/create?app=nlp-demo-course_147222U005

eScience Servicedesk (point of first contact):
https://support.escience.sdu.dk/

Categories
Call Interactive HPC Supercomputing

Reduced Resources in Upcoming national HPC Call

The position of Chair of the DeiC Board is currently vacant, leading to delays in decision-making processes and affecting upcoming national HPC calls.

John Renner Hansen has stepped down as Chair of the DeiC Board. As a result, the DeiC Board is currently unable to make financial decisions, which impacts several ongoing and upcoming HPC activities.

A new Chair is expected to be appointed by the Rectors’ Conference of Danish Universities in early August 2025.

Fewer Resources in Upcoming National HPC Call

The next national HPC call will open on 15 July 2025 and covers the compute period from 1 January to 31 December 2026. DeiC’s current contracts with DeiC Interactive HPC will expire on 31 December 2025, and work is underway to establish a new agreement. However, as the Board is not currently quorate, there is no guarantee that new agreements will be in place before the call opens. Therefore, the upcoming national call will only include national compute time on LUMI.

For more information, please contact your local Front Office.

This is an adaption of the story published by DeiC https://deic.dk/en/news/2025-6-20/delayed-quantum-calls-and

Categories
Application Supercomputing UCloud

New app: ONLYOFFICE Now Available on UCloud

ONLYOFFICE is a browser-based office suite for creating and editing text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Fully compatible with Microsoft Office formats, the interface supports a seamless user experience for those familiar with traditional desktop editors.

Designed to support document work directly within the UCloud environment, ONLYOFFICE allows users to:

  • Edit and create documents stored on UCloud
  • Work with word documents, presentations, and spreadsheets
  • Upload and download files without leaving the platform
  • Maintain full compatibility with Microsoft Office file types

The app provides core functionality through a lightweight, browser-accessible interface. No additional software installation is required.

ONLYOFFICE is available to all UCloud users and is particularly relevant for:

  • Editing or preparing academic documents
  • Managing structured data in spreadsheets
  • Creating or reviewing presentations
  • Performing collaborative writing tasks

For more details, visit the UCloud documentation.

App Suggestions and Support

To suggest additional applications or request new features, contact your local Front Office.

Categories
Application Supercomputing UCloud

New app: Manage your next event with Indico

Indico is a robust open-source platform for event organization, archiving, and collaboration, ideal for managing conferences, workshops, and scientific meetings.

Key features include:

  • Event Management: Indico allows you to organize a wide range of events, from small seminars to large conferences. It supports the entire event lifecycle, including registration, abstract and final paper submission.
  • Hierarchical Protection: Indico uses a hierarchical protection scheme that allows for different roles and protection levels within events. 
  • Integration with Collaborative Tools: Indico integrates seamlessly with tools like Zoom, enhancing the productivity of web-driven meetings. 
  • Document Management: Indico facilitates easy upload and retrieval of presentations, papers, and other documents.

Indico has been implemented on UCloud and is ready for use by all UCloud users.

For more details, visit UCloud docs for full documentation.

Categories
Supercomputing Teaching Tutorial UCloud Workshop

Workshop 11/6: UCloud Courses hands-on

Developing your own UCloud course app using a newly developed template-based approach

Join us for a hands-on workshop where we guide you through all the steps of developing a UCloud course app using our newly developed template-based approach. The concept involves having a dedicated app on UCloud for your university course that students can use in e.g., exercise/lab session and/or at home. An introduction to the approach can be found in this webinar recording.

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:

  • Translate your course structure to a structure that is compatible with a UCloud course app.
  • Set up the course development environment which involves cloning the GitHub repository and running a course setup script.
  • Customize the provided templates to build a UCloud course app that includes all required components – software dependencies, scripts, datasets, and more.
  • Test the course on your computer during development to ensure everything functions correctly. We will also see how the final course app looks once it has been put on UCloud.

Git/GitHub and Docker are essential tools in the UCloud course development process. In the workshop, we will give short introductions to both tools primarily aimed at those participants who do not have experience with them. Participants can benefit from following introductory tutorials to Git and Docker in advance, although this is not a requirement.

Date: 11 June 2025

Time: 12:30-14:30 (CET)

Location: Online, via Zoom (link TBA)

Target audience: Researchers and teachers across all departments at all the Danish universities

Technical Level: Basic to Advanced

Sign up for this workshop.

Categories
Application Interactive HPC Supercomputing

New App: Apache Kafka 

Users of DeiC Interactive HPC – UCloud can now access Apache Kafka, a high-performance event streaming platform designed for managing real-time data at scale. 

Kafka deployments on UCloud support multi-node configurations, enabling production-grade distributed logging, stream processing, data integration, and publish/subscribe messaging systems. 

Students and researchers can use Apache Kafka to collect, process, and analyse large volumes of real-time data – for example, streaming data from lab sensors, social media, or web clickstreams. It’s especially useful for building data pipelines in projects involving machine learning, IoT, or real-time analytics, enabling reproducible and scalable research workflows. 

For more details on the Apache Kafka application, visit UCloud docs for the full documentation.



Categories
Application Supercomputing UCloud

New app: Speech Analyzer – A New AI Tool for Dialogue Analysis

With growing demand for transcription/AI services on Interactive HPC – UCloud, Speech Analyzer has been added to the platform.  

Speech Analyzer is a specialised application built on top of Label Studio, optimised for dialogue analysis. It enables users to label, edit, and annotate speech transcriptions generated by the integrated Transcriber engine. It also allows you to share tasks with collaborators. 

Sign up for the free online workshop on transcribing and editing audio transcriptions with the Transcriber and Speech Analyzer apps takes place 22 May.

For more details on the Speech Analyzer application, visit UCloud docs for the full documentation.

Categories
Interactive HPC Supercomputing UCloud Workshop

Workshops on AI applications

Join us for three new and free online workshops to explore how these tools can transform your work. Discover AI Applications on DeiC Interactive HPC – UCloud

Workshop 1:

Transcribing and editing audio transcriptions with Transcriber and Speech Analyzer apps

Date: 22 May 2025

Time: 13:00 – 15:00 (CET)

Location: Online, via Zoom (link TBA)

Join us for a hands-on workshop where we guide you through the complete pipeline of transcribing audio files from speech to text and editing and classifying transcription segments.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

  • Use Transcriber for transcribing audio/video files. Transcriber is based on Open AI’s Whisper language model. The app can transcribe speech audio to text in various formats and uses the WhisperX package to perform speaker recognition.
  • Navigate the new, simple, drag and drop Transcriber user interface to make it easier for you to use AI to transcribe audio files.
  • Edit and classify the transcriptions with Speech Analyzer. Speech Analyzer is an application built on top of Label Studio, specifically optimized for dialogue analysis. It enables you to label, edit, and annotate transcriptions generated using Transcriber.
  • Perform a comprehensive dialogue analysis on UCloud involving transcribing audio files using Transcriber, followed by transcription analysis with Speech Analyzer.

All workflows will be executed inside a UCloud project environment with access to GPU resources.

Target audience: Researchers across all Departments, particularly Digital Humanities and Social Science, Students, AI interested.

Technical Level: Basic to Intermediate.

Sign up for this workshop

Workshop 2:

ChatUI and CVAT pipelines

Date: 27 May 2025

Time: 13:00 – 15:00 (CET)

Location: Online, via Zoom (link TBA)

Join us for a hands-on workshop where we guide you through two different AI based workflows, involving ChatUI and CVAT apps.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

  • Use Chat UI as a flexible interface for hosting of various LLM models, and interact via a chat or API environment.
  • Use ChatUI for semantic search in a knowledge base.
  • Use CVAT as a powerful annotation tool, including image classification, object detection, semantic and instance segmentation, and video / 3D annotations.
  • Use advanced CVAT features including auto-annotation, algorithmic assistance, management and analytics.

All workflows will be executed inside a UCloud project environment with access to GPU resources.

Target audience: Researchers across all fields, particularly transport, robotics, digital humanities, social sciences, machine learning and students.

Technical Level: Basic to Intermediate.

Sign up for this workshop

Workshop 3:

Fine-Tuning and Deploying  Large Language Models with NeMo Framework and Triton Inference Server

Date: 28 May 2025

Time: 13:00 – 15:00 (CET)

Location: Online, via Zoom (link TBA)

Join us for a hands-on workshop where we guide you through the complete pipeline of fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) for specialized tasks such as medical question-answering!

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

  • Prepare and preprocess open-source datasets for fine-tuning.
  • Apply Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT) using LoRA with NVIDIA NeMo Framework.
  • Deploy optimized LLMs using NVIDIA Triton Inference Server and TensorRT-LLM.
  • Generate a synthetic Q&A dataset using Label Studio connected to a live inference backend.
  • Fine-tune and evaluate your customized LLM for domain-specific applications.

All workflows will be executed inside a UCloud project environment with access to GPU resources.

Target audience: Machine learning practitioners, researchers, and engineers interested in LLM customization, domain adaptation, or scalable model deployment.

Technical Level: Intermediate to Advanced.

Sign up for this workshop

DeiC Interactive HPC provides researchers at Danish universities with access to a variety of AI applications on UCloud that enable them to accelerate their research through powerful and secure computational tools.

Through online workshops the DeiC Interactive HPC Consortium will introduce both new and experienced users to DeiC Interactive HPC/UCloud’s AI app portfolio.

The sessions are designed to equip researchers and students with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively harness DeiC Interactive HPC/UCloud’s AI tools for their research.

Feel free to share with colleagues and peers who might benefit. See you there!

Categories
Supercomputing Workshop

Interactive HPC Consortium workshop

Yesterday, we were at First Hotel Grand Odense for the first DeiC Interactive HPC workshop of 2025

It was time to give each other a status on the developments and work done since our last consortium workshop in Rebild Bakker in the fall of 2024. Key topics included:

  • Branding and outreach
  • AI, teaching and UCloud workshops
  • Service development

Thanks to the SDU eScience Center for hosting such an engaging and insightful event! And a heartfelt thank you to all the participants who joined to discuss the key topics.

A special thanks is due to our guest speaker, head of DeiC Data Management Anne Sofie Fink for her enlightening talk on the FAIR principles and for exploring potential synergies between the DeiC DM services and the DeiC Interactive HPC service.

We look forward to continuing these important conversations and collaborations in the future! Our next consortium workshop will take place in the fall 2025, organized by Center for Humanities Computing.