2020-12-17

SCC News 2/2020

The new SCC-News edition is online, including these topics: Competence in AI research – The Helmholtz AI Consultant Team at SCC; Towards new challenges: Let’s go Quantum; Application and System Monitoring for SAP Systems.

Download SCC News 2/2020

Dear reader,

developing efficient and sustainable software for our energy supply systems is one of the grand challenges of the future. Increasingly based on artificial intelligence (AI) the new software among other things, enables energy distribution models that meet the changed prerequisites and requirements. For this, practical AI methods must be developed or adapted, which is where the Helmholtz AI consultant team, active since October, comes into play (cover picture). The team supports scientists doing energy research in the Helmholtz Association with specialists knowledge of AI methods, tools and software engineering. We introduce you the consultant team and their mission from page 20 onwards.

‘Off to new challenges’ is said of the another very promising field of research: quantum computing. With theoretically exponential computing acceleration it promises a high potential for innovation. If machines are to efficiently recognize structures in data, quantum computers can be far superior to todays computers. Therefore a team at SCC is researching algorithms for quantum computers and translating them into machine learning applications. Starting on page 22, we report on how young SCC scientists are motivated to take on the ‘Let's go Quantum’ challenge.

At the ‘heart’ of the business processes at KIT, e.g. for personnel and financial management, purchasing and financial project implementation as well as for various self-services, ‘beats’ the SAP system. Only through the interaction of a large number of servers, storage and application systems does it dependably supply services and applications to numerous organisational units and institutes. It is particularly challenging to keep this heart ‘healthy’ and to recognize early on whether irregularities or problems are looming. For this purpose the SAP operations team has set up a first class monitoring and diagnosis system (page 6).

Enjoy reading

Martin Frank, Bernhard Neumair, Martin Nußbaumer, Achim Streit