NSF awards Indiana University $10M to build Jetstream 2 cloud computing system

The 8 petaFLOPS system will provide virtual supercomputing power to researchers in a range of fields, including AI, social sciences and COVID-19 research

 

The Per­va­si­ve Tech­no­lo­gy Insti­tu­te at India­na Uni­ver­si­ty has been award­ed a $10 mil­li­on grant from the Natio­nal Sci­ence Foun­da­ti­on to deploy Jet­stream 2, a dis­tri­bu­ted cloud com­pu­ting sys­tem to sup­port on-demand rese­arch, arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence and enhan­ced lar­ge-sca­le data ana­ly­ses for the nation.

Jet­stream 2’s signa­tu­re inno­va­ti­on is its abili­ty to make high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting and soft­ware easy to use by rese­ar­chers who have limi­t­ed expe­ri­ence with super­com­pu­ting sys­tems. This is espe­ci­al­ly hel­pful for smal­ler aca­de­mic com­mu­ni­ties with litt­le pre­vious access to such resour­ces. IU is expec­ted to recei­ve near­ly $20 mil­li­on in total from the NSF to crea­te, imple­ment and ope­ra­te Jet­stream 2 over five years.

For over 20 years, India­na Uni­ver­si­ty has con­tin­ued to grow in our high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting exper­ti­se, sta­tu­re and ser­vice to the nation’s rese­arch com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness,” IU Pre­si­dent Micha­el A. McRob­bie said. “The NSF’s rene­wal and expan­si­on of Jet­stream will push the total NSF invest­ment in IU-led com­pu­ting sys­tems to over $50 mil­li­on in the last deca­de, and we are gra­teful to the NSF for their con­fi­dence in IU’s lea­der­ship and abili­ties in this vital sci­en­ti­fic area for the United States.”

Jet­stream 2 builds on the tre­men­dous suc­cess of the ori­gi­nal Jet­stream sys­tem at IU and with our part­ners,” said Brad Whee­ler, IU vice pre­si­dent for infor­ma­ti­on tech­no­lo­gy and chief infor­ma­ti­on offi­cer. “It bund­les com­pu­ta­ti­on, soft­ware and access to sto­rage for indi­vi­du­als and teams of rese­ar­chers who span hundreds of are­as of rese­arch and who work at the fron­tiers of sci­en­ti­fic inquiry. It fur­ther expands IU’s many tech­no­lo­gy and rese­arch part­ner­ships across the nation.”

The cur­rent Jet­stream sys­tem was led by IU in 2014 and fun­ded as the NSF’s first pro­duc­tion sci­ence and engi­nee­ring rese­arch cloud sys­tem for the nati­on. Jet­stream has offe­red cloud-based, on-demand com­pu­ting and data ana­ly­sis resour­ces within the natio­nal Extre­me Sci­ence and Engi­nee­ring Dis­co­very Envi­ron­ment, known as XSEDE.

Over the years, the Jet­stream sys­tem has given thou­sands of U.S. rese­ar­chers access to a powerful cloud-based envi­ron­ment that com­ple­ments other NSF sys­tems — all from a lap­top or iPad — allo­wing them to explo­re and under­stand immense amounts of data. Today, Jet­stream is part of the COVID-19 HPC Con­sor­ti­um, offe­ring resour­ces in sup­port of rese­arch rela­ted to fin­ding a cure for the pandemic.

We intend Jet­stream 2 to be a demo­cra­tiz­ing force within the NSF eco­sys­tem, allo­wing rese­ar­chers and edu­ca­tors access to cut­ting-edge resour­ces regard­less of pro­ject sca­le,” said David Y. Han­cock, Jet­stream 2 prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor and direc­tor for Advan­ced Cyber­in­fra­struc­tu­re in IU’s Uni­ver­si­ty Infor­ma­ti­on Tech­no­lo­gy Ser­vices. “ ‘AI for ever­yo­ne’ is a term we’­ve coin­ed to embrace that idea. Through the use of vir­tu­al infra­struc­tu­re, we will be able to pro­vi­de more access to high-end tech­no­lo­gies to enable deep lear­ning and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence techniques.”

The­se awards repre­sent a suite of com­ple­men­ta­ry advan­ced com­pu­ta­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties and ser­vices aimed to empower new fun­da­men­tal rese­arch in many fields,” said Amy Fried­lan­der, acting direc­tor of the NSF Office of Advan­ced Cyber­in­fra­struc­tu­re. “NSF’s long-stan­ding invest­ments in advan­ced and inno­va­ti­ve com­pu­ting respond to the rapid evo­lu­ti­on and expan­si­on of com­pu­ta­tio­nal- and data-inten­si­ve rese­arch being con­duc­ted across all of sci­ence and engineering.

The pro­ject team also has a goal of ser­ving more stu­dents than any other NSF-fun­ded cyber­in­fra­struc­tu­re resour­ce, lea­ding to a diver­se pool of gra­dua­tes ente­ring the STEM work­force with robust trai­ning in com­pu­ta­tio­nal sci­ence. Jet­stream 2 builds on the class­room suc­cess of Jet­stream, which was used in clas­ses to teach com­pu­ta­tio­nal bio­lo­gy and che­mis­try, and in stu­dent pro­jects on AI approa­ches to bio­lo­gi­cal field rese­arch, vete­ri­na­ry medi­ci­ne and tex­tu­al analysis.

Con­sis­ting of five com­pu­ta­tio­nal sys­tems, Jet­stream 2’s pri­ma­ry sys­tem will be loca­ted at India­na Uni­ver­si­ty, with four smal­ler regio­nal sys­tems deploy­ed nati­on­wi­de at part­ners Ari­zo­na Sta­te Uni­ver­si­ty, Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawai’i and the Texas Advan­ced Com­pu­ting Cen­ter. The 8 peta­FLOPS cloud com­pu­ting sys­tem will use next-gene­ra­ti­on AMD EPYC pro­ces­sors and NVIDIA A100 GPUs, and 18.5 peta­bytes of sto­rage. Addi­tio­nal Jet­stream 2 part­ners include the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zo­na, Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty Cor­po­ra­ti­on for Atmo­sphe­ric Rese­arch, with Dell Inc. as the pri­ma­ry supplier.

About the Pervasive Technology Institute

The Per­va­si­ve Tech­no­lo­gy Insti­tu­te at India­na Uni­ver­si­ty is a col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve orga­niza­ti­on desi­gned to mar­shal IU’s com­pu­ta­tio­nal experts and resour­ces quick­ly in respon­se to socie­tal, rese­arch and edu­ca­tio­nal needs. In part­ner­ship with UITS, the Per­va­si­ve Tech­no­lo­gy Insti­tu­te also led the ori­gi­nal Jet­stream award. The insti­tu­te was estab­lished in 1999 by a gene­rous grant from the Lil­ly Endow­ment and has con­tin­ued to lead pro­duc­ti­ve uses and appli­ca­ti­ons of rese­arch tech­no­lo­gies for over 20 years.

About University Information Technology Services

Uni­ver­si­ty Infor­ma­ti­on Tech­no­lo­gy Ser­vices is part of the Office of the Vice Pre­si­dent for Infor­ma­ti­on Tech­no­lo­gy and Chief Infor­ma­ti­on Offi­cer for India­na Uni­ver­si­ty. It pro­vi­des ser­vices across all IU cam­pu­ses to sup­port the mis­si­on of India­na University.