Talsco Weekly: Build an LLM from Scratch on the IBM i

Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly

IBM i Brief: 🚀 IBM i modernization mirrors Star Trek’s epic journey.
AI: 🔧 IBM i: Build an LLM from scratch step-by-step.
Development: 🌟 RPG pioneer celebrates 12 years of IBM i innovation.
Learning: 👨‍🏫 ignite program transforms IBM i education landscape. 🌎 International IBM i Events In Full Swing.
Open Source: 🔄 Connecting NagiosXI and Grafana just got simpler.

IBM i Brief

🚀 IBM i modernization mirrors Star Trek’s epic journey From the foundational days of System/3x (like Star Trek: Enterprise) to today’s advanced IBM i platform (paralleling Picard), the evolution mirrors Star Trek’s progression. Both narratives showcase how legacy systems and original core values remain relevant while adapting to new technologies and challenges. This transformation demonstrates the platform’s resilience and ability to integrate modern solutions while maintaining its essential strengths. 📊 IBM's quantum computing milestone propels stock to record highs IBM's stock hit a record high following their announcement of plans to build the world's first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum supercomputer by 2029. This breakthrough promises a 20,000x performance improvement in quantum computing. The stock closed at $276.013 on June 13, after reaching $281.48 on June 11 and $280.35 on June 12.

AI

🔧 IBM i: Build an LLM from scratch step-by-step

This comprehensive tutorial repository provides educational materials for constructing a Large Language Model (LLM) from fundamental principles.

Created by Adam Shedivy

A software developer with a passion for open source and AI. Studied Computer Science and Data Science at UW-Madison and is currently at IBM, where he focuses on building open-source AI solutions for IBM Power Systems (IBM i).

Is he the next-generation of IBM i talent that we have been talking about?

Absolutely.

Talented developers like Adam are discovering the IBM i platform, bringing fresh perspectives and AI expertise to our ecosystem.

Adam’s work is based on Sebastian Raschka’s work; it includes interactive notebooks, visualization tools, and complete implementation guides covering everything from tokenization to production deployment, making complex LLM development accessible to learners.

His work on the IBM i and Power Systems along with AI is impressive.

On his website you can find IBM i tutorials on LLMs:

Not to mention, he is a fellow UW Badger.

U Ra Ra….Wisconsin👏

Development

🌟 RPG pioneer celebrates 12 years of IBM i innovation

RPGPGM.COM marks its 12th anniversary with notable achievements, including Feedspot’s recognition as a top IBM blog in 2025.

Cheers!!

Data

🧊 Databricks revolutionizes AI agent development with Agent Bricks The company's new offering tackles three major challenges in AI deployment: evaluation, data availability, and optimization. Early success includes AstraZeneca building a knowledge extraction agent in just 60 minutes, capable of processing 400,000 research documents. The platform provides automated evaluation systems, synthetic data generation, and optimization tools to help enterprises balance quality and cost effectively. 🔄 IBM unveils unified data and AI strategy for enterprise transformation IBM's latest announcement outlines a comprehensive approach to enterprise AI scaling, emphasizing data integration, governance, and seamless deployment across hybrid environments to accelerate business transformation.

Learning

👨‍🏫 ignite program transforms IBM i education landscape

The i-UG (United Kingdom-based) user group’s innovative partnership with the University of Wolverhampton created iGnite, a hands-on program teaching IBM i through IoT and Node-RED.

The course lets students control real-world devices using Power servers, making IBM i learning practical and engaging. With three successful cohorts completed and growing demand from other universities, the program is successfully bridging the talent gap while changing perceptions of the IBM i platform.

🔧 IBM i job priorities demystified A comprehensive guide explains why batch jobs default to priority 50 on IBM i systems. This balanced setting ensures background tasks don't compete with interactive jobs (priority 20) while maintaining system efficiency. The article emphasizes that job performance depends on both priority and timeslice settings, with memory pool configuration playing a crucial role in overall system optimization.

Vendors

🔄 Connecting NagiosXI and Grafana just got simpler

A new integration method using NagiosXI’s built-in APIs replaces the traditional pnp4Nagios approach, allowing direct access to RRD file data in JSON format.

What is Granfana?

Grafana is an open-source platform for monitoring and observability, visualizing metrics, logs, and traces from various data sources through customizable dashboards, enabling real-time insights and alerts.

The “Infinity” data source transforms this JSON data into Grafana-compatible graphs, maintaining performance while preserving NagiosXI’s native graphing capabilities.

This solution enables remote monitoring and multi-tenant dashboard access through Grafana’s tiered user permissions.

🌐 Eradani launches comprehensive IBM i integration solution The company's new Managed API and EDI Integration Services addresses a critical market need, offering end-to-end integration expertise for IBM i systems. The service tackles common challenges like retiring experts and increasing connectivity demands, providing fixed-cost subscriptions that include implementation, 24/7 support, and ongoing maintenance, enabling organizations to focus on core business operations while experts handle integration needs.

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