Special Guest Lecture: Students, staff get introduced to GPU Computing Systems to Run and Optimize AI/ML Applications

On 16th February 2024, staff and students from CST-ACEIoT and CBE-Data Science get introduced to GPU Computing Systems to Run and Optimize AI/ML Applications.

This special guest lecture was provided by Dr. Hakizumwami Birali Runesha, Associate Vice President for Research Computing and founding Director of the Research Computing Center (RCC) at The University of Chicago.

The lecture attracted mostly students and staff in the field of science and mainly students from the African Centre of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT) and the African Center of Excellence in Data Science who joined the lecture online.

Dr. Runesha having more than 28 years of experience in high performance computing, data science and scientific software development.

He shared with participants the nsightful review of current and future Graphics Processing Units (GPU) accelerators , the critical importance of comprehending the hardware running AI application , illustrative examples of AI applications at scale and emphasized the importance of reproducibility in computational research.

“The ability to train and run AI, deep learning, and large language models at scale hinges heavily on the choice and understanding of the underlying GPU or processor accelerator. However, while hardware technologies are evolving at a fast pace, software optimization and the ability to harness the full potential lag behind”, Dr. Gatare Ignace, Principal of the College of Science and Technology said.

Dr. Hakizumwami Birali Runesha is the co-Chair of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Advisory committee on Cyberinfrastructure, member of the National Council of Science and Technology (NCST), member of Lenovo/Intel Project Everyscale, member of the African Center of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT) International Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB) and member of the Reimagining Climate Governance in the Digital Age advisory committee.

Dr. Hakizumwami Birali Runesha, is the former Director of Scientific Computing and Applications at the University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, Research Associate at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Assistant Professor in the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Kinshasa.