Category: Interactive HPC

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Interactive HPC UCloud UCloud status

New data centre for UCloud – what does it mean for you? 

A new data centre for UCloud will open soon. As part of the transition, there will be a short period of downtime at the end of April and – for some users – a need to move data. 

The data centre is being established through a collaboration between SDU, Danfoss and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and will host the hardware behind DeiC Interactive HPC – UCloud. At the same time, the infrastructure is being upgraded with new and more powerful hardware. 

The UCloud infrastructure will therefore be consolidated in a single data centre instead of being distributed between SDU and AAU. The transition may affect you as a user. Here is an overview of what you should be aware of. 

Short downtime during the migration 

When the system is migrated to the new data centre at the end of April 2026, all services are expected to be unavailable for up to 3 days. Once the migration has been completed, the new data centre is expected to be fully operational in early May 2026. 

Moving data 

If your data are stored in SDU/K8s, they will be moved automatically to the new data centre during the migration. You do not need to take any action. 

⚠️ Special note for users with data in Aalborg (AAU) ⚠️

If you have data in AAU/K8s or AAU/VM, they will not be moved automatically. These data must be transferred to SDU/K8s before 20 April 2026, otherwise they will be lost. Please note that transferring data can take time, so it is a good idea to plan accordingly. 

Go to the guide on how to move your data.

All compute allocations will expire 

As part of the transition to the new system, all existing compute allocations will expire on 30 April 2026. This happens automatically as part of the migration to the new infrastructure. 

Procedures may vary between universities 

The procedure for new allocations on the new data centre is determined by your university, and the allocation of compute resources is handled by the university’s local DeiC front office. 

If you are unsure about the procedure, we therefore recommend contacting your local DeiC front office. 

For further information, important dates and the timeline, see SDU’s documentation.

More computing power – and a simpler system to use 

In the new data centre, UCloud will receive new and more powerful hardware, giving researchers better opportunities to work with large datasets, advanced computations and AI. 

At the same time, it will become easier to choose the right resources. Where several different machine types were previously available, users will now simply choose between two types of compute: 

  • CPU – for standard computations 
  • GPU – for tasks such as AI and advanced data processing 

This simpler structure makes it quicker and clearer to apply for and use computing power, allowing researchers to focus more on their analyses and less on technical choices. 

The new data centre has also been designed with a focus on energy-efficient operation. In collaboration with Danfoss and HPE, advanced cooling and heat recovery systems are used that make it possible to reuse excess heat and reduce energy consumption. 

The initiative forms part of ProjectZero in Sønderborg, which is working to make the area’s energy system CO₂-neutral by 2029. 

Read more about the new data centre here: 

Categories
Application Interactive HPC Research Supercomputing

Introducing RAGFlow: Enabling Smarter Research with AI-Powered Search

A new open-source application is now available on UCloud, designed for students, researchers, and educators working with complex data and artificial intelligence. RAGFlow – short for Retrieval-Augmented Generation – combines powerful language models with your own academic materials, offering an intelligent way to search, explore, and interact with content.

Whether you’re conducting a literature review, developing a teaching assistant, or building a domain-specific chatbot, RAGFlow provides an intuitive pipeline that transforms unstructured documents into a searchable, AI-ready knowledge base. But RAGFlow is more than just question-answering. It supports the creation of custom workflows and intelligent agents, enabling advanced interactions, data processing, and tool integration – all within a flexible and transparent environment.

What can you do with RAGFlow?

RAGFlow helps large language models (LLMs) generate accurate answers based on real data – not just pre-trained knowledge. It’s built to close the gap between raw academic material and useful insight.

RAGFlow is designed with both beginners and advanced users in mind. At its simplest, you can just upload documents and start asking questions. The interface guides you through the basics, so you can get useful results straight away.

As your needs grow, you can delve deeper into advanced features such as custom chunking, retrieval tests, datasets, and programmable workflows. Comprehensive documentation and tutorials are available, allowing you to learn at your own pace and expand your use of the platform over time.

Key Features:
  • Data Ingestion & Chunking:
    Upload PDFs, text files, webpages and more. RAGFlow automatically breaks them into manageable parts.
  • Embedding & Indexing:
    These chunks are converted into vector representations so they can be searched by meaning, not just keywords.
  • Smart Retrieval:
    When you ask a question, the system finds the most relevant information.
  • Contextual Generation:
    An LLM uses this context to generate well-informed responses.
  • Cited Sources:
    All answers come with grounded citations, showing where the information came from — supporting transparency and academic rigour.

This process improves the quality of responses and significantly reduces the risk of hallucinated or misleading answers.

From Search to Workflow: Introducing Agents

Beyond document search, RAGFlow also allows you to build and customise your own AI-powered agents. These agents can search, analyse, and use tools on your behalf – forming a pipeline tailored to your specific research needs.

So, what is an agent?

Think of an agent as a specialised AI assistant. You might create one to retrieve data from a source, another to analyse it, and a third to generate a written summary or report. These agents can be chained together into a programmable pipeline – a step-by-step flow where each agent passes its output to the next.

For example, you could build a research assistant that:

  • Searches for academic papers on a topic
  • Extracts and summarises the most relevant findings
  • Runs basic statistical analysis
  • Outputs the results as a draft report

Unlike typical ‘black-box’ AI tools, which conceal their inner workings, RAGFlow provides full transparency, allowing you to understand exactly how your AI operates. You can inspect, adjust, and understand every stage – from document chunking to embedding, retrieval, and agent reasoning. It’s a flexible and reproducible platform where your agents can be saved, re-run, or even shared with colleagues.

Why use RAGFlow on UCloud?

RAGFlow is available directly on UCloud. This offers several key advantages:

  • Academic Use Cases:
    Build assistants for teaching, research discovery, or even entire knowledge bases for your institute or research centre.
  • No Installation Required:
    Launch RAGFlow on UCloud with everything preconfigured and ready to use.
  • Flexible AI Model Support:
    Choose from models hosted on Hugging Face, Ollama, or take advantage of GPU-accelerated inference with vLLM – all accessible via an API key.
  • Easy Document Management:
    Upload and manage a wide range of formats, including PDFs, scanned documents, spreadsheets, and HTML.
Learn more 

Guides and technical details:
RAGFlow Guide
RAGFlow documentation on UCloud

A recorded tutorial will also be available shortly. Sign up for the newsletter to receive updates on this and other Interactive HPC news.

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Interactive HPC Supercomputing UCloud

New Agreement Strengthens Collaboration on DeiC Interactive HPC

Shortly before Christmas 2025, DeiC and the Interactive HPC Consortium entered into a new five-year agreement on the national HPC service, with an annual budget of DKK 10 million. At the same time, the DeiC Board decided to invest a one-off amount of DKK 4 million in expanded GPU capacity. This additional investment has made it possible to significantly upgrade the facility. The upgrade strengthens opportunities for research projects working with large datasets and AI, while also providing better opportunities to use GPU resources more broadly.

In spring 2026, the consortium will establish a new energy-efficient data centre that will house the hardware for DeiC Interactive HPC. Danfoss and HPE are participating in the establishment of the data centre, which is described here.

“Through the new agreement, we are strengthening a shared national research infrastructure that gives researchers across Denmark easy access to advanced computing power. This is an important step for both digitalisation and digital sovereignty in Danish research. At the same time, the collaboration between the universities demonstrates that we can jointly develop solutions that are both technologically strong and sustainable – not least through the establishment of an energy-efficient data centre,” says Professor Claudio Pica, coordinator of the Interactive HPC Consortium.

Collaboration and development in focus

With the new contracts, DeiC and the Interactive HPC Consortium continue and expand a strong and trusted partnership. The long-term nature of the agreements and the strengthened financial framework reflect a solid collaboration and a shared commitment to developing the solution in close dialogue with users and DeiC’s professional forums. The aim is a solution that evolves in line with researchers’ needs and priorities.

At the same time, the agreements build on the service’s high level of security and strengthen the already well-established framework for reporting on usage and operations. Finally, the partners have established clear shared expectations regarding the handling of future development work and system integrations.

Acting Head of HPC at DeiC, Rune Gamborg Ørum, sees the new agreement as an important step forward:

“Beyond the opportunities offered by the new facility itself, I am pleased that our joint work on the contracts has also created a clear collaborative structure around the service. This will make a real difference for users, as it allows us to work together to support the many different ways researchers use DeiC Interactive HPC.”

In February 2026, the partners met in Aarhus for a joint workshop focusing on putting the agreement into practice and ensuring a well-functioning collaboration on technical development, user support and training activities in the coming years. Among other things, participants discussed how existing users can transition smoothly to the new data centre and the new GPU resources.

DeiC Interactive HPC 

DeiC Interactive HPC provides interactive and user-friendly supercomputing for researchers at Danish universities. The service is based on the UCloud platform, operated by the Interactive HPC Consortium consisting of the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Aarhus University (AU) and Aalborg University (AAU).

Today, DeiC Interactive HPC has approximately 22,000 users among students and researchers and supports a wide range of research fields. Through DeiC Interactive HPC, DeiC and the universities provide researchers across the country with access to scalable computing power via UCloud.

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Interactive HPC Research Supercomputing Teaching UCloud Use case

UCloud Provides Student Access to Advanced NLP in Teaching 

In the Master’s programme in Cognitive Science at Aarhus University, UCloud plays a central role in teaching Natural Language Processing (NLP). For instructor and PhD student Mina Almasi, the platform is essential in enabling students to work hands-on with complex models – regardless of the limitations of their own computers.

From Theory to Hands-On Learning 

In a white classroom in Nobelparken, Mina stands in front of 15 students. On the screen behind her, lines of Python code appear in neat, symmetrical rows as she explains which code libraries the students need to access.

In her teaching, she uses the Coder Python application in UCloud because the course is based on Python programming. But the choice of platform is not just about software – it is about giving students the opportunity to translate theory into practice.

According to Mina, NLP teaching previously tended to remain at a more theoretical level, due to limited access to both models and the computing power needed to test theories in practice – especially when it came to large language models. With UCloud, students can now work directly with language models (LLMs) and make use of powerful GPUs and CPUs. This allows them to test theories themselves and experiment hands-on with the tools they are learning about.

“We still teach the theory, but now we can also have students use the tools in practice. They can code on their own and gain insight into how a large language model works by working directly with it through UCloud,” she explains.

A Standardised Setup that Democratises the Classroom 

Another advantage of using UCloud in NLP teaching is that the platform ensures equal access for all students, regardless of the computer they own.

“There is a kind of democratisation of the classroom, because you don’t need the latest computer. You can use a five-year-old machine to run very heavy tasks that the newest tools in Natural Language Processing require,” she explains.

At the same time, the standardised setup makes teaching more seamless. All students work with the same standard configuration in UCloud, so any issues that arise are the same for everyone. This creates a shared sense of problem-solving, as challenges can be addressed collectively rather than handled individually by students on their own. As Mina puts it:

“Instead of stopping the lesson to solve individual problems, the problems become collective and an opportunity for learning for everyone. If we have a software issue – for example, a Python library version that is outdated or incompatible – it affects everyone, and we can solve it together.”

Preparing Students for Working Life

For Mina, using UCloud also helps prepare students for the reality that awaits them after graduation. According to her, many of the students who go on to IT positions will likely use cloud computing platforms rather than coding on local machines. In this way, the teaching becomes direct preparation for future job tasks and gives students experience with the technologies they will encounter in practice.

Advice for Other Instructors 

Mina has used UCloud since her bachelor’s degree and finds that the platform makes teaching both smoother and more engaging.

“I recommend that other instructors make use of the platform. You just have to get started – but feel free to ask colleagues for advice on how they use it. Get some inspiration, because UCloud is a fantastic tool. It can do a great many things, but like other systems, it can feel a bit overwhelming at first, so it’s a good idea to get some guidance along the way before you begin.”

Categories
Call Interactive HPC Research Supercomputing UCloud

H2-2026 National HPC Call is open

You can now apply for compute time on UCloud. DeiC has opened the first 2026 call for applications for access to Denmark’s national HPC facilities – and Interactive HPC – UCloud is part of this call.

So if your research needs extra compute resources on UCloud, now is the time to apply. These calls only open twice a year, so this is a great opportunity to consider applying in this round. Researchers (and PhD students) at Danish universities can apply.

Key dates

  • Call opens: 13 January 2026
  • Application deadline: 10 March 2026
  • Resources available from: 1 July 2026

Read more and apply via DeiC

Categories
Interactive HPC Supercomputing UCloud

A milestone reached: 20,000 users on UCloud

We are pleased to announce that even more people have discovered how UCloud can support their research – and that we have now reached an important milestone of 20,000 users.

The 20,000 users include both students and researchers, which is a truly remarkable number for a national supercomputing platform. UCloud is among the most successful High-Performance Computing platforms in Europe and stands out with a user base that is both significantly larger and more diverse than that of other – and often larger – supercomputing facilities across Europe. This applies both in terms of the number of users and the representation across research fields, levels of experience, and academic backgrounds.

Making High-Performance Computing accessible to all

UCloud was developed with a clear goal: to make High-Performance Computing accessible to all researchers affiliated with a Danish university – regardless of research area, experience, or academic discipline. We are therefore proud to see that the platform is widely used by both researchers and students across disciplines and levels.

We are pleased to help enable important research by providing the computing power needed to make research work easier and more time-efficient. At the same time, UCloud makes it possible to process sensitive data on a secure platform. Our platform is an important contribution to research that creates real value in the world beyond academia.

A milestone driven by collaboration

This milestone is the result of many years of focused work to create a platform that combines user-friendliness with high performance. It is also the result of the strong consortium collaboration between the University of Southern Denmark, Aarhus University, and Aalborg University, which jointly develop UCloud and continuously expand the platform to meet researchers’ needs.

A new data center to support the growing user base

To support the rapidly growing number of users on the platform, a new data center to host UCloud’s next-generation hardware was recently established. This expansion strengthens UCloud’s capacity and ensures that the platform is future-proof and ready to support both current and upcoming users. You can read more about the expansion here: University Collaboration Strengthens National Research Infrastructure with New Green Data Center.

We look forward to welcoming even more users to UCloud – and to continuing to support Danish research with modern, scalable, and secure supercomputing infrastructure.

Categories
Application Interactive HPC Research Supercomputing Tutorial Workshop

Workshop 26/2: CVAT – AI-Assisted Labeling

Date: February 26, 2026

Time: 13:15 to 14:30 CET

Location: Online via Zoom

CVAT, Computer Vision Annotation Tool, is an interactive video and image annotation tool, designed to facilitate the annotation of video and image data and accelerate the creation of high-quality datasets for computer vision tasks. CVAT is available on the UCloud platform, in the Application Store.

The webinar will show how to use CVAT on UCloud to:

Label and annotate data with the help of AI and OpenCV tools, including:

  • Use of cvat-cli
  • Run built-in model for detection and auto-annotation
  • Use of GPUS with built in models for faster annotation
  • Adding custom models (e.g. YOLO)

Efficiently manage large visual datasets with MinIO:

  • Allow CVAT to directly pull images from your UCloud MinIO buckets for annotation and export annotated data back, reducing manual imports/exports and ensuring data availability.

Using UCloud allows users to create fully reproducible and secure workflows that leverage high performance computing resources. Those features are often necessary for large dataset and accurate computer vision tasks.

Target audience: Researchers across all Departments, particularly who require high-precision data labeling, AI interested.

Technical Level: Basic to Intermediate

Sign up for the CVAT workshop

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Interactive HPC Supercomputing Tutorial Workshop

Workshop 19/2: Text classification using large language models

Date: 19 February 2026
Time: 13:15 – 14:30 (CET)
Location: Online, via Zoom

The purpose of this webinar is to demonstrate how to perform automated text classification using pre-trained, open-source large language models (LLMs). The efficiency that LLMs bring to otherwise laboursome workflows, such as text classification, makes it possible to work with much larger text corpora across all fields of research. The use case will focus on classifying text according to sentiment, but the general workflow is applicable to many other text classification tasks.

In the webinar, we will create a complete workflow which will consist of the following parts:

  1. Retrieving text data from online sources
  2. Storing and preparing the data for analysis
  3. Setting up the LLM text classifier
  4. Performing the text classification
  5. Displaying the results (for validation etc.)

The workflow will be set up on the UCloud platform. Using UCloud allows users to create fully reproducible and secure workflows that leverage high performance computing resources which are often necessary to run LLMs locally.

Sign up for the Text Classification workshop

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

Webinar recording: Learn to record and transcribe securely with the Dictaphone app

In this webinar recording, you will watch a hands-on workshop introducing Dictaphone – a UCloud application that enables researchers to securely record and transcribe interviews directly from their own devices, even when working with sensitive data. 

In the recording, we guide you through how to: 

  • Record interviews and conversations using Dictaphone on your laptop or smartphone 
    Audio is streamed in real time to the secure UCloud backend, ensuring that no data is stored locally on your device – making Dictaphone well suited for handling sensitive data. 
  • Automatically transcribe recordings within the same workflow
    Dictaphone includes built-in transcription functionality, allowing you to convert speech to text quickly and efficiently. 
  • Make the most of Dictaphone, including tips, additional features, and real research use cases. 

This recording is relevant for researchers across all departments as well as students. 

Dictaphone is a beginner-friendly application and does not require any technical background. 

Time stamps 

  • 00:00 – 06:25: Introduction and getting started 
    Requirements, data classifications, and the basic workflow. 
  • 06:25 – 32:15: Live demonstration of Dictaphone 
    How to record and transcribe, and how to navigate the platform before and after recording. 
  • 32:15 – 33:50: Data storage and security 
    How Dictaphone stores data and why it is suitable for sensitive data. 
  • 33:50 – 35:30: Related resources and support 
    Other webinars, related UCloud apps, and contact information. 
  • 35:30 – 43:15: Q&A session 
    Questions from the participants. 
  • 43:15 – 44:22: Wrap-up and next steps 
    Summary and where to find further resources. 

Relevant links 

Categories
Interactive HPC Supercomputing UCloud

University Collaboration Strengthens National Research Infrastructure with New Green Data Center 

The shared infrastructure of three Danish universities has become a significant success for research and innovation. Now, capacity is strengthened further with the establishment of a new, more energy-efficient and sustainable data center.

Over the past six years, demand for the type of interactive, user-friendly supercomputing provided by DeiC Interactive HPC has proven enormous. UCloud, the platform behind the service, now has nearly 20,000 users, including both students and researchers—a truly unique figurefor a supercomputer. Comparable – and even larger – supercomputers in Europe cannot boast even half as many users or the same broad representation across gender and research fields as UCloud.

“DeiC Interactive HPC and UCloud have, in six years, changed the way Danish researchers work with supercomputing. With UCloud, we have made advanced computing power accessible across disciplines—from students to experienced researchers—and created a platform that combines user-friendliness with high performance. It’s a success we are proud of and one that shows Denmark can lead the way in digital research,” says Marianne Holmer, Dean of the Faculty of Science, University of Southern Denmark. 

The New DeiC Interactive HPC – More Computing Power and Sustainability 

DeiC funding has been increased, and new opportunities for collaboration have emerged for the consortium behind the service, consisting of the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Aarhus University (AU), and Aalborg University (AAU). SDU, Danfoss, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have entered into a collaboration to establish a new data center (link), where DeiC Interactive HPC’s hardware will be placed going forward. The new data center makes it possible to combine high-performance computing with energy-efficient and innovative cooling and heat recovery. At the same time, Danfoss’ cooling and heat recovery systems enable surplus heat from the new data center to be reused. 

The initiative is supported by ProjectZero, a public-private partnership in Sønderborg with the goal of making its energy system carbon-neutral by 2029. The project focuses on a three-step decarbonization approach of reducing, reusing, and renewing energy and has already achieved a significant reduction in energy-related carbon emissions.

The increased investment from DeiC means the consortium can deliver higher capacity to its many users. SDU, as the consortium representative, has worked with the supplier HPE to assemble a supercomputer that includes the latest and most powerful GPU hardware – essential for AI research and handling large datasets. All of this will be available in UCloud’s secure, user-friendly open-source environment.

“With the new data center, we are taking a decisive step into the future of research infrastructure. We are showing that Denmark can deliver world-class supercomputing – not only in performance but also in sustainability and digital sovereignty,” says Professor Claudio Pica, Director of the SDU eScience Center. 

A Unique Contribution to Denmark’s Digital Sovereignty 

DeiC Interactive HPC is located on Danish soil and uses Danish-developed open-source cloud technology – UCloud. This allows Danish researchers to efficiently utilize supercomputer resources without relying on foreign technology providers, and in an environment suitable even for sensitive personal data.

“There is currently much discussion about digital sovereignty and the challenges posed by the fact that parts of the digital infrastructure that Denmark heavily depends on is developed, owned, and controlled by foreign tech giants. Here, UCloud and the Interactive HPC collaboration are a unique example of how public institutions can develop and use secure, transparent, and sustainable digital solutions that support research, education, and society’s broader digital needs,” says Professor Kristoffer Nielbo, Head of the Center for Humanities Computing, Aarhus University. 

The consortium’s role in strengthening Denmark’s digital sovereignty was recently highlighted by a visit from the Minister for Digital Affairs, Caroline Stage Olsen. With increased capacity and a new data center, it is clear that the consortium can contribute even more to this agenda in the future. 

University Collaboration Beyond Hardware

In the new consortium setup, SDU is responsible for operating and delivering the hardware for DeiC Interactive HPC, while all three universities contribute to developing the service, maintaining and adding new apps to UCloud’s App Store, and supporting the other universities. One of the keys to DeiC Interactive HPC’s success is not just offering supercomputing power – but also the support and user-friendliness that make these powerful resources accessible to a wide range of researchers, including students.

“The strength of the consortium lies in the fact that we don’t just deliver hardware, we create a shared platform where universities develop solutions together. This provides a dynamic service that is continuously adapted to researchers’ needs. By combining computing power with user-friendly tools and solid support, we open the door to new opportunities in research and innovation,” says Jacob-Steen Madsen, Deputy Director, IT Services, Aalborg University.