AI@SGMK

We want learn about how AI works, how we can use it and apply it to our work. As a starting point, we'll organize a workshop to kick things off. We will organize further sessions if folks are interested or want to contribute their own topics, demos and presentations.

Tiny chips, great power —
Neural networks in theory,
Local AI takes flight.
— Qwen 3B

Sunday, 26 April 2026, 13:00–15:00, at Bitwäscherei in Zurich

Overview

• AI Hardware - From MCUs to server grade NPUs
• Basic Theory - Neural Networks
• Running AI locally on single board computers
• What's next? Which topics do we want to dive deeper into? When do we plan to do a next session?

AI Hardware

Chrismicro will introduce this workshop series, and will give us an overview of what AI-related hardware is out there, from tiny micro controllers (MCUs), consumer graphics cards (GPU), up to server grade neural processing units (NPU).

What to expect:

• What do artificial neural networks really have in common with the human brain?
• How much AI can fit on a microcontroller?
• Why are memory prices rising right now—and what does that mean for AI?
• Can AI run locally, without cloud services and data sharing?
• What hardware is worth investing in today—and what’s coming next?

Local AI – take control of your data:

More and more people don’t want to share their data with the cloud. Local AI opens up powerful alternatives.

• What exactly is an AI model?
• What hardware is required?

Theoretical Basics

Markus will provide us with the theoretical tools to grasp how neural network operate, so we can start to make sense of all the new acronyms and terms that can make your head spin when dealing with AI.

Presentation 26.4.2026: File:AI SomeTheoreticalBasics.pdf

Running Local AI Inference

Simon / El RIDO will show some practical applications of small LLMs, that we can run locally on single board computers (SBC) with a small NPU. For practical trials, a Radxa Rock 5b, an SBC based on the Rockchip RK3588 chipset with 16 GB of RAM and a NPU with 6 TOPS will be available on site, letting us run local, offline inference using the RKNN-LLM framework in a terminal based chat. For some more bells and whistles, such an SBC or a gaming GPU (300 TOPS and more) can be combined with the Open WebUI dashboard through the ollama-API. This lets us come close to the experiance of cloudbased commercial AI chat solutions.

Planning Future Sessions

We'll collect what topics are of interest to the participants and will try to organize further sessions to dive deeper into the topics or work on concrete applications with the tools at hand. Let's have some fun!