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WestAI: Access to AI for Business and Science

January 22nd, 2025 | by

IT Center, RWTH Aachen University

The launch of the WestAI AI service centre will revolutionise access to artificial intelligence for companies and scientists in Germany. Under the leadership of the University of Bonn and with the support of leading research institutions from North Rhine-Westphalia, WestAI offers innovative AI services and state-of-the-art computing infrastructure that can be used immediately – and currently even free of charge. The IT Center of RWTH Aachen University offers part of this infrastructure.

 

What Is WestAI?

WestAI is one of four Germany-wide AI service centres funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The center pools the expertise of renowned universities and research institutions in NRW. RWTH Aachen University’s IT Center is one of the participants.

The aim is to facilitate access to AI technologies for both companies and researchers, to advance AI research and to put innovative applications into practice. You can find out more in our previous article.

Computing Power for AI Projects – Now Available

Source: WestAI

One of WestAI’s key offerings is the provision of computing time for AI projects. The IT Center and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre administer the 124 Nvidia H100 GPUs purchased for this purpose. Using a JupyterHub instance, interactive work on these systems is very convenient and close to the familiar development environment. Classic access via SSH and batch operation are also possible. A broad software stack provides all common modules for machine training.

 

‘We particularly want to address small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that do not have their own AI infrastructure,’ explains Prof. Dr Matthias Müller, Director of the IT Center. Up to 10,000 GPU hours per project are currently available. Both experienced AI experts and beginners can use the infrastructure.

 

Customised Support for Companies

In addition to the technical infrastructure, WestAI offers extensive consulting services. Start-ups and SMEs can receive support with evaluating ideas and project planning if required. Once an idea has been found that is to be prototyped, the IT Center provides support with applications for computing time and access to high-performance hardware. In this way, the WestAI team supports companies from the initial idea through to realisation.

 

Innovative Research Is the Key

In addition to providing infrastructure and services, WestAI’s partners also conduct their own AI research. For example, the focus is on multimodal AI systems that can process different types of data such as text, images or audio, as well as transfer learning, in which pre-trained models are adapted to specific applications.

 

A Project with Vision

WestAI shows how collaboration between leading scientific institutions and targeted funding can create new opportunities for the use of AI. With a strong focus on the transfer of knowledge between science and industry and the practical implementation of AI applications, the project is making an important contribution to technological development in Germany.

Further information on the project and how to apply for computing time can be found on the WestAI website.

 


Responsible for the content of this article are John Arnold and Malak Mostafa.

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