Lecture series

LECTURE SERIES
High Performance Computing

A new series of popular science lectures about interesting HPC applications

In the winter semester 2024, we will focus on other fascinating areas where high performance computing (HPC) plays a key role. We will mainly focus on meteorology, climatology, chemistry and large language models (LLM). We will address the use of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence in climate modeling, and we will also bring interesting discussions on genetic sequencing and computer simulations focused on polymers, DNA, topological molecules. We will also focus on genomic analyzes with significant implications for biomedicine, healthcare and epidemiology. Last but not least, we will also address the question of whether there are enough words in the Slovak language to train a large language model.

Participants will have the opportunity to discuss with invited experts after the lectures. Face-to-face lectures will be held in a pleasant and informal atmosphere over coffee in the FCHPT STU building at Radlinského 9 in Bratislava. Online lectures will take place via Zoom. You can watch recordings of our lectures via YouTube.

If you are interested in a specific topic or would like to present your research, let us know!!

26 Nov
16:00
What Is Needed to Train a Slovak Large Language Model
Radovan Garabík Ľudovít Štúr Institute of Linguistics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, v. v. i.
Venue: FCHPT STU, Bratislava
REGISTRATION
In recent years, large language models have dramatically changed natural language processing. A breakthrough was the use of transformer architectures, which are particularly suitable for processing larger text contexts, and generative language models. What is required to create such a model that communicates in Slovak? We present the existing huge Slovak text corpora and the work that lead to the creation of the mistral-sk-7b large language model.
10 Dec
16:00
Destination Earth – Vysokovýkonné počítanie pre počasie a klímu
Jozef Vivoda z ECMWF – Eurpoean Centre for Medium range Weather Forecast
Venue: FCHPT STU, Bratislava
REGISTRATION
Destination Earth (DestinE) is a flagship initiative of the European Union aimed at creating a digital model of planet Earth (Digital Twin). Due to societal and climate changes, EU countries are increasingly exposed to extreme weather impacts. Our ability to predict these changes in both the short and long term is hindered by the low regional accuracy of existing climate models. To overcome this limitation, the DestinE project is developing two distinct digital replicas of the complex Earth system. These digital twins will enable seamless integration of real-time observations with high-resolution forecasts and predictions. One of these digital twins will focus on weather-related and geophysical extremes, while the other will serve climate change adaptation purposes.