The German Research Foundation (DFG) supports research on artificial intelligence at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf (HHU) by considerably expanding the computing capacities. 850,000 euros are now being invested in the expansion of the high-performance computer HILBERT.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are on everyone's lips. At the HHU, various research aspects are coordinated and processed at the 'Heine Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science' (HeiCAD) and the associated Manchot research group 'Decision-making with the aid of Artificial Intelligence'.
AI research requires a powerful computer infrastructure tailored to their specific needs. In order to upgrade the high-performance computer cluster HILBERT operated at the HHU accordingly, the Centre for Information and Media Technology (ZIM) together with the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has submitted a large-scale equipment application to the DFG. This has now been approved.
The approved funds will be used to equip HILBERT with highly specialised hardware. This is equipped with very powerful graphic processing units (GPUs). Each GPU has around 6,000 small computing units, so that parallelisable computing tasks in particular can be processed extremely quickly with such a processor. Up to 16 of these GPUs are located on each computer board, up to 8 of these boards are purchased in total.
"With this upgrade, the 'Competence Center for Scientific Computing and Storage' at ZIM will be technically strengthened considerably", says Prof. Dr. Harald Ziegler, Director of ZIM. Dr. Stephan Raub from the competence center adds: "Many problems in the field of AI, such as the training of self-learning algorithms, for example for AI-assisted medical diagnoses, can be tackled very well with such a highly parallel computer structure. This is why the new hardware is particularly beneficial for this branch of research."
In return, the new installations can be used to decommission old equipment. Philipp Rehs, also a staff member of the Competence Center: "The new extension of High Performance Computing at the HHU is thus climate-neutral, since the new computing units have the same energy requirements with considerably increased performance".
Many research groups at the HHU with AI-reference have supported the successful DFG application and will benefit from it in the future. These include the Institute of Anatomy (Prof. Dr. Dr. Svenja Caspers), the Institute of Systemic Neurosciences (Prof. Dr. Simon Eickhoff), the Department of Neurosurgery (Prof. Dr. Hans-Jakob Steiger), the research group Computer-aided Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Molecular Informatics (Prof. Dr. Holger Gohlke), the Department of Computational Linguistics (Prof. Dr. Laura Kallmeyer), the Institute for Mathematical Modelling of Biological Systems (Prof. Dr. Markus Kollmann) and the LVR Clinic Düsseldorf (Prof. Dr. Eva Meisenzahl).