Waiting has come to an end: RAISE colleagues are on the road
Since the start of the project in January 2021, almost all events took place digitally due to COVID19 travelling restrictions putting networking to the test. Finally, after almost one and a half years, the first in-person events became possible again. The RAISE colleagues used this opportunity and visited trade fairs and workshops in Germany, the Czech Republic, Iceland, France, and Italy to spread the words about the project. In the following articles, they are telling us about their exciting journeys and what new and old colleagues they met.
High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering Conference 2022 (Czech Republic)
CoE RAISE participated in the “High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering Conference 2022” (HPCSE’22) that was held from May 16 to May 19, 2022, in the beautiful Hotel SOLÁŇ, Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, in the Czech Republic. The conference was organized by the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center (IT4I) and the VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. It was held within the frame of the EuroCC project and brought together experts from Engineering and High-Performance Computing.
The Coordinator of CoE RAISE Dr. Andreas Lintermann was invited to give a presentation on “AI and HPC in Engineering Applications: Contribution to CoE RAISE and Beyond”.
Figure 1: Presentation by Dr. Andreas Lintermann.
After providing a general overview of the project, he dived into the CoE’s simulation- and data-driven use cases. More specifically, he presented results from the use cases “AI for turbulent boundary layers”, “AI for data-driven models in reacting flows”, and “Event reconstruction and classification at the CERN HL-LHC”. Lintermann’s presentation sparked interesting discussions about a prospective collaboration with the EuroCC National Competence Center (NCC) Czech Republic. It is planned to organize joint workshops to accelerate the knowledge transfer from CoEs to the user community in the Czech Republic and vice-versa.
Figure 2: Full workshop room at HPCSE 2022.
Many other talks such as on the EuroCC NCC Czech Republic strategy on industry outreach and support, high-scaling meshing techniques for engineering applications, isogeometric analysis, performance analysis and tuning, or medical applications, caught Lintermann’s attention. It was possible to exchange on these topics during a visit to the KAR0L1NA supercomputer at IT4I, at the poster session, during the social events, or in the coffee breaks.
Figure 3: All participants in the event.
Overall, the conference was a full success. CoE RAISE is looking forward to a joint collaboration with IT4I, VSB, and the EuroCC NCC Czech Republic, as well as to the next HPCSE conference.
During the event, Andreas Lintermann was interviewed for the IT4Innovation newsletter. The interview can be found here.
33rd Parallel CFD International Conference 2022 (Italy)
This year 2022, CoE RAISE was invited to organize a mini-symposium on the “33rd Parallel CFD International Conference 2022” (ParCFD’22), which was held in the beautiful city of Alba, Italy, from May 25 to May 27, 2022.
Figure 4: Beautiful view of the vineyards.
Work Package 3 (WP3) “Compute-Driven Use-Cases Towards Exascale” of CoE RAISE is working on the integration of AI technologies on CFD workflows. It was therefore natural to gather the experts in this WP to compile the ParCFD mini-symposium (MS) “MS1: Convergence of Artificial Intelligence and High-Performance Computing for Computational Fluid Dynamics”. The MS was organized by Dr. Corentin Lapeyre from CERFACS (WP3 and Task 3.3 leader), Dr. Guillaume Houzeaux from BSC (Task 3.2 leader), and Dr. Andreas Lintermann from FZJ (Coordinator CoE RAISE). It aimed at gathering experts in the fields of the development and application of parallel CFD methods incorporating novel AI methods, and pure AI method developers contributing to the fields of CFD and HPC alike. At ParCFD, the MS established a platform for discussion and exchange in the context of the convergence of AI and HPC with respect to parallel CFD methods that could benefit from the power of next-generation Exascale computing systems.
Figure 5: Full seminar room at the ParCFD.
With four sessions, chaired by Houzeaux and Lintermann, CoE RAISE’s MS was the largest MS of ParCFD and hence a great success. In each session, four presentations - two in-person and two hybrid, were given, which worked smoothly thanks to ParCFD’s perfect organization. Many of CoE RAISE’s partners contributed to the success of the CoE. FZJ and RWTH were represented by the talks on “Parallel and Scalable Deep Learning To Reconstruct Actuated Turbulent Boundary Layer Flows Part I and Part II” and “Generative Adversial Networks With Lattice-Boltzmann Losses for the Prediction of Unsteady Flows”. UOI and FZJ joined with their presentation on “Lagrangian Particle Tracking Data of Straining Turbulent Flow Assessed Using Machine Learning and Parallel Computing”. CERFACS, reported on their CoE RAISE work in the presentation “High-Performance Hybrid Coupling of a CFD Solver to Deep Neural Networks”. Other than that, further contributions from BSC, RWTH, University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy), Politecnico di Torinon (Italy), Reijkjavik University (Iceland), Beihang University (China), STFC Daresbury Lab (UK), Imperial College London (UK), RIKEN Center for Computational Science (Japan), University Rouen COROA (France), Electricité de France, and PSL University (France) were presented.
Figure 6: RAISE colleagues.
The scientific presentations and discussions were accompanied by a trip to the winery at Fortanafretta, including a fabulous conference dinner and a song contest between the different participating countries.
ISC High Performance 2022 (Germany)
I, Rakesh Sarma, represented CoE RAISE at the ISC 2022 in Hamburg at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) stand in the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) booth #G701. It was great to already meet many JSC colleagues at the booth (not virtually, but this time live!). The participants from JSC had a schedule for booth presence, although there were many overlaps for interactions. The live presence definitely made the conversations more personal and it was interesting to know about many of them. During the ISC workshop, I also met our RAISE colleague from CERN, Maria Girone for the first time in person, and it was very nice to finally interact live.
Figure 7: Maria Girone during her presentation.
Figure 8: Maria Girone and Rakesh Sarma.
On the GCS booth, we had RAISE flyers and a RAISE video. This attracted many visitors from both industry and academica. In particular, I interacted with at least three groups of students (Germany and Spain) who wanted to know more about JSC. In terms of RAISE, a couple of industrial visitors were interested in the hardware infrastructure that we have access to in RAISE and they offered their insights on accelerators. I also had an interaction with an Australian government official who wanted to know more about collaboration opportunities with us. Other than that, the other booths also provided many interesting avenues for collaboration. In particular, I had a long conversation with the team from scads.ai based in Dresden/Leipzig on their scalable AI approaches and opportunities for collaborations.
Figure 9: Rakesh Sarma during his presentation
I furthermore participated in a workshop, which took place on the final day of the conference. We contributed from RAISE’s side to the “Workshop on Software Co-Design Actions in European Flagship HPC Codes”. The workshop was a full success with participation from other CoEs – MaX CoE, EoCoE, POP CoE, BioExcel CoE and Trex CoE. It was good to know about the co-design efforts from other CoEs. There was enthusiasm among the workshop participants on our developments in WP2 and WP3, and regarding our plans to publish our codes on the RAISE website. I also attended another workshop on Quantum and Hybrid Quantum/Classical Computing, where I found it interesting to see contributions from LRZ in this field. This workshop was of particular interest to me since we are gearing towards developments in Quantum Annealing in RAISE. Overall, the ISC 2022 was a great experience and a privilege for me to represent RAISE on such a big platform.
HDCRS Summer School 2022 (Iceland)
CoE RAISE was a co-organizer of the second edition of the summer school promoted by the High-Performance and Disruptive Computing in Remote Sensing (HDCRS) Working Group of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS). The school took place at the University of Iceland from 30 May to 2 June, 2022. Its overall objective was to give participants a comprehensive overview of current topics and methods in the field of High-Performance Computing (HPC), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Quantum Computing in Remote Sensing (RS).
Figure 10: Jón Atli Benediktsson, Gabriele Cavallaro, and Dora Blanco Heras in exchange.
Together with Prof. Jón Atli Benediktsson, the rector of the University of Iceland, I (Gabriele Cavallaro) gave opening remarks summarizing the opportunities offered within IEEE GRSS and their connection with the activities of HDCRS and the CoE RAISE project. CoE RAISE was also represented by Rocco Sedona and Marcel Aach, who provided lectures on Deep Learning (DL) and how to achieve scaling on HPC systems.
Figure 11: Rocco Sedona and Marcel Aach (connected live) hold their lecture together in the lecture hall.
In particular, they provided best practices and pitfalls in adopting DL algorithms on supercomputers and showed practical applications from RS, where HPC is used to accelerate training and hyperparameter tuning.
Figure 12: The participants of the HDCRS Summer School.
Out of 200 registrations from all over the world, the maximum number of 30 attendees were admitted on site and received access to computing resources. The rest attended via YouTube live streams on the GRSS YouTube Channel, where the recordings are now available. Me and the other chairs of the HDCRS working group Prof. Dora Blanco Heras and Dr. Jin Sun were happy to receive very favourable feedback for the summer school and we are looking forward to organizing the third edition together with CoE RAISE at the University of Iceland in 2023.
”It was a great opportunity to be able to talk about the activities we are pursuing in RAISE at the HDCRS summer school. I think meeting other people, talking freely, and getting valuable feedback is the basis of our work as researchers“, Rocco Sedona said after the event.
Teratec 2022 Forum Exhibition (France)
This event was attended by BULL that promoted the project during the associated exhibition.
This is a large venue in Europe where the HPC community (with a strong presence of industrial actors) provides latest advancements and innovations in the domain. The event is also connected to a large exhibition where major industrial players and projects can show their major advancements and research outcomes.
During the event, the project was disseminated to various stakeholders including the general public. The event also provided an opportunity to highlight the innovations lying behind the RAISE platform and strengthen the RAISE positioning within the HPC community.
Figure 13: Stephane in front of the CoE RAISE booth.
Last but not least
We would like to thank all the organizers for the good organization and the opportunity to present our project as well as for many fruitful conversations. The events remain in good memory for us and if the possibility exists, we will gladly come again.