Cypher 2026: Hands-On AI Workshop Pre-Requisites & Technical Setup Guide

Dear Cypher 2026 Learning Pass Holder, welcome! To get the most out of our live technical masterclasses, please review the required pre-workshop environment setup below and complete it prior to joining us at the venue.

LAPTOP & OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

High-speed Wi-Fi will be provided at the venue, but participants must bring their own laptops configured to the following specifications:

• Windows: Windows 10/11 | Minimum 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended) | 20–30 GB free SSD storage | Latest Chrome or Edge browser.

• MacBook: macOS 13 or later (Apple Silicon M1/M2/M3 preferred; modern Intel Macs supported) | Minimum 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended) | 20–30 GB free SSD storage | Latest Chrome or Safari browser.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENT: AGENTIC DATA CLOUD WORKSHOP

For the workshop: "Agentic Data Cloud: From building the analytics data foundation with Knowledge Catalog, federating it with transactional data to generating advanced insights using Agentic Intelligence":

• Personal Gmail Account Required: You will need a personal Gmail ID to perform this lab.

• Device Access Check: Please verify in advance that your laptop allows logging into personal Gmail accounts. Using a corporate-restricted device that blocks personal Gmail will negatively impact your lab experience.

PRE-WORKSHOP GENERAL ENVIRONMENT SETUP

Please ensure administrative permissions are enabled on your device to execute package installations and local scripts:

1. Python Environment: Install Python 3.11+ with pip configured and permission to create virtual environments (venv).
2. IDEs & Version Control: Install VS Code and/or Jupyter Notebook along with Git and an active GitHub account.
3. Unrestricted Colab Access: Ensure you can log into Google Colab (https://colab.research.google.com/) using your personal Gmail account.
4. Free Cloud API Keys: Set up free accounts on Hugging Face, Google Gemini API, or Groq API.

LOCAL MODEL SETUP FOR "BUILD YOUR FIRST PRODUCTION-READY AI AGENT"

This hands-on workshop runs locally via Ollama (no cloud credits or OpenAI API keys required). Please install the engine and download the necessary open-weights models before the event:

1. Install Ollama:

• macOS (Terminal):

curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

open /Applications/Ollama.app

ollama --version

• Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://ollama.com/install.ps1 | iex

ollama --version

(If the command is not recognized immediately, restart PowerShell.)

1. Pull Required Local Models:

Run the following terminal commands to pre-download the workshop model assets:

ollama pull qwen3:4b-instruct

ollama pull nomic-embed-text

ollama list

• qwen3:4b-instruct — Generation, classification, and agentic tool calling.

• nomic-embed-text — Semantic embeddings for policy retrieval and RAG.

WORKSHOP CODE & PACKAGE DISTRIBUTION

Session code, sample datasets, and Jupyter notebooks will be shared live during the sessions via GitHub repositories and Google Colab links. Where local execution is required, trainers will provide a standard requirements.txt file for rapid environment initialization.

If you encounter technical setup issues or permission restrictions on your device, please reach out to Team Cypher prior to the event.