A Practical Guide to LLM Deployment and RAG Systems

Contribution List

1. Hands-on Setup (Optional)

Christodoulos Stylianou (CaSToRC CyI), Mr Marios Constantinou (CaSToRC CyI)

10/09/2025, 09:30

Please use this session to ensure you can access the HPC system.

2. Deploying Large Language Models Locally

Christodoulos Stylianou (CaSToRC CyI)

10/09/2025, 10:00

This presentation covers the process of deploying large language models on local machines and high-performance computing systems. It focuses on the tools and workflows needed to run models efficiently without relying on cloud infrastructure.

The talk will include practical tips for setting up environments, managing resources, and avoiding common issues during deployment. It will also...

3. A Practical overview of Transformers, Embeddings and RAG Systems

Dr Nikolaos Bakas (GRNET)

10/09/2025, 10:45

In this session, we will present how to set up and use Large Language Models (LLMs) for various tasks, using the Hugging Face Transformers library. We will cover techniques for inference and text generation, including streaming outputs, and utilize embeddings to understand and visualize semantic relationships between words and sentences using cosine similarity. A key focus of the seminar will...

4. Hands-On: Model Deployment through vLLM, Communication and Creation of RAG Pipelines

Mr Marios Constantinou (CaSToRC CyI)

10/09/2025, 12:30

In this hands-on session, participants will deploy large language models on Cyclone, the National High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure, using tools like vLLM for efficient inference and Haystack for building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines. The session will guide attendees through the end-to-end process of setting up model environments, running local inference, and...