Industry Leaders Combine to Address Immediate Skills Shortage in Deep Learning

As High-Performance Computing (HPC) has advanced from academic research centres and into mainstream IT infrastructure, there is an increased focus on emerging domains such as deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Deep learning with neural networks, in particular, has dominated the attention of the HPC community as algorithms are applied to huge and often complex data sets. Continued advancements in deep learning have accelerated a thriving AI ecosystem in Ireland and the expansion of neural networks usage across many industries.

This sudden demand for a workforce with the skills to use powerful neural networks has already lead to the launch of a Masters in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the University of Limerick in collaboration with The Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC). Despite this, we will not see qualified graduates until Autumn 2019 and global industry advancements in technology will not wait.

ICHEC is the seventh global Nvidia CUDA research centre, the sixth global Intel Parallel Computing Centre, and leads research on HPC in Ireland. The centre has designed a unique, industry-focused Deep Learning Training Course, with real use cases and guest lectures being provided by the main industry players, Microsoft, Intel, Google, MathWorks and Nvidia. Each partner will present their unique experience on how and where to start applying deep learning.

What is Deep Learning?

With large and complex data sets, deep learning trains a computer to perform tasks in an human-like manner, such as describing content, recognising speech, classifying images or making predictions based on patterns. The computer algorithms involved try to mimic how layers of neurons work together to ‘learn’. So while traditionally the programmer will tell the computer the predefined rules and patterns to look for in the data, deep learning approaches sets up basic parameters about the data and train the computer to learn on its own by recognising patterns.

Due to the iterative nature of deep learning algorithms, their complexity as the number of layers increase, and the large volumes of data needed to train the networks, a lot of computational resources are needed to solve deep learning problems; hence the need to utilise High-Performance Computing. 

“HPC aided deep learning algorithms can be used for detection of anomalies or false positives, to support human decisions or to provide early insights. Not only this but time to action can be reduced from a matter of days to minutes or seconds,” explained Dr Venkatesh Kannan, Novel Technologies Lead at ICHEC.

The Deep Learning Training course will begin on 22nd April, through this 5-day technical course, participants can learn more about: data segmentation, concepts of artificial neural networks, supervised and unsupervised learning techniques and GPU-accelerated application of deep learning frameworks on the cloud.

Register for the course and find out more at  www.ichec.ie/deeplearning.