HPC and AI aren’t just for computer scientists!
This was once again demonstrated by a productive visit from the Technical University of Applied Sciences Schweinfurt (THWS) at NHR@FAU: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stephan Sommer and colleagues from the Department of Mechanical Engineering visited Erlangen to explore how AI methods and high-performance computing can enhance their research projects.
Prof. Sommer’s group is well known for bearing research and CAD/simulation work; Schweinfurt is a traditional center of the German bearing industry, and his lab collaborates closely with industrial partners on application-oriented research. Most of the visiting students have a mechanical/civil engineering background. As a thoughtful gesture, they gave us a small souvenir: a pencil and a deck of custom-made Uno cards, showcasing their fields of focus.
Earlier this year, Prof. Sommer’s team presented its AI Bearing Engineer tool at the Bearing World conference in Dresden. The tool is designed to support engineers during the bearing design and selection process and was developed as part of the publicly funded Green Tech Bearings project (2024–2026). The project explores the use of AI and digitalization—including digital twins—to develop more efficient bearing systems for emerging applications such as e-mobility and wind energy.
Discussing the Future of AI Support
During a joint meeting between the THWS group and the NHR@FAU AI Support Team, they discussed their individual areas and outlined the tasks and key issues they face to help each other understand each other’s areas of work. This also benefits the further support assistance for the THWS HPC users. NHR@FAU is currently already supporting two ongoing THWS projects.
After the conversational get-together, the guests attended our HPC Café, where Prof. Dieter Kranzlmüller (Leibniz Supercomputing Centre) presented the EU-funded Initiative Blue Swan, an AI Giga Factory planned in Schweinfurt, which seemed to be a perfectly tailored hot topic for the THWS visitors. We would like to thank the visitors for the good exchange and Prof. Kranzlmüller for an interesting talk that rounded out the day.
