News
TPC Announced with Founding Partners
On Friday, 10-November TPC released the announcement below. The community continues to grow–with now over 500 participants in the Slack workspace, from nearly 70 organizations around the world. We expect to announce additional partners in the coming weeks and months, as we develop governance functions and membership processes.New International Consortium Formed to Create Trustworthy and Reliable Generative AI Models for Science
Trillion Parameter Consortium launches with dozens of founding partners from around the world
A global consortium of scientists from federal laboratories, research institutes, academia, and industry has formed to address the challenges of building large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) systems and advancing trustworthy and reliable AI for scientific discovery.
Massive Image Dataset Blending
The National Ecology Observatory Network (NEON) periodically collects data from various locations nationwide using Airborne Observation Platforms (AOPs). It is designed to collect long-term open-access ecological data to understand better how U.S. ecosystems are changing. Regarding data management and processing, NEON's biggest challenge is acquiring, processing, and distributing the AOP data collected periodically from key locations across the nation and contributing to a data collection of hundreds of TBs, which continues to grow exponentially.
This data is processed using a combination of cloud-based and on-premises computational resources and then shared with the larger scientific community. Researchers at the University of Utah have supported this effort, providing streaming visualization solutions to make this data interactively accessible online (see an example on the NEON data portal).
NSDF Announces SC23 Travel Award Winners
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| top row: Heberth Martinez; middle row: Darren Petty Jr, Zhimin Li, Chuntida Harinnitisuk; bottom row: Aashish Panta, Kaleb Gibson, Keara Soloway |
Responsible AI initiative seeks to solve societal problems
The University of Utah is launching a new research initiative focused on artificial intelligence (AI) that aims to responsibly use advanced AI technology to tackle societal issues. President Taylor Randall announced a $100 million investment in the newly created Responsible AI Initiative that will advance AI and its applications in ways that achieve societal good while also protecting privacy, civil rights and liberties, and promoting principles of accountability, transparency and equity. The initiative will be led by the U’s Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute as part of a concerted effort to conduct research at the U that improves the lives of Utah’s 3.4 million residents.
Manish Parashar Receives the 2023 Sidney Fernbach Memorial Award
University of Utah professor and SCI director Manish Parashar has receiced the 2023 Sidney Fernbach Memorial Award “For application-aware design of HPC algorithms, systems and architectures, and transformative impact on scientific computing and industry.”
University of Utah and University of Calgary Launch U.S.-Canada Center on Climate-Resilient Western Interconnected Grid
Through $5M funding by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and $3.75M funding by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the University of Utah and University of Calgary will establish and co-lead the U.S.-Canada Center on Climate-Resilient Western Interconnected Grid.
The Western Interconnected Grid, commonly known as “the Western Interconnection,” is one of the two major interconnected power grids in North America, which stretches from the northern edge of British Columbia, Canada to the border of Baja, Mexico, and from the California coast to the Rockies, and serves roughly 80 million people over 1.8 million square miles across two Canadian provinces and fourteen western states in the United States. The Western Interconnection is the backbone of one of the largest regional economic engines in the world.
Five New Grants Awarded
National Data Platform Pilot: Services for Equitable Open Access to Data.
NSF.
Dates: 2023-2026.
PIs: Ivan Rodero (SCI), Ilkay Altintas, overall PI, University of Colorado Boulder and EarthScope. Collaborators from Utah include Todd Green (SCI), Philip Davis (SCI), Joe Breen (CHPC) and Harish Maringanti (Libraires).
Abstract: The National Data Platform Pilot (NDP) project aims to address the challenges faced by the scientific community in accessing vast data efficiently and equitably. The project intends to create a unified data ecosystem leveraging Cyberinfrastructure (CI) capabilities. It seeks to standardize data processes, fill existing gaps in data CI, and offer data services that promote broad access and collaboration. Furthermore, the NDP emphasizes building an interconnected data hub network to boost scientific understanding, policy formation, and societal impact, with a strong commitment to equity in AI research. The University of Utah’s role involves enhancing the current data CI, integrating diverse data sources, democratizing data access, building on the foundation laid by the NSF Virtual Data Collaboratory (VDC) project, and integrating relevant science driver applications. This endeavor aims to make technology more accessible to a wide audience and amplify the value of facilities' data.
John Warnock passes away at 82
Sadly, our great friend, mentor, and supporter, John Warnock, passed away on Saturday, August 19, 2023. I was fortunate to meet John when I was a young Assistant Professor, and I got to spend time with this amazing person over the past many years. He was always ready to tell stories giving details and background of his innovations in computer graphics and desktop publishing. He also enjoyed talking about his passion for great books and this efforts to share these great books with the world via his Rare Book Room: http://www.rarebookroom.org.
Universities use blockchain-based storage to protect and democratize data
Academic institutions house some of the world’s most important data generated from years of research. Yet centralized data storage models are becoming a concern for many universities looking to keep critical information safe and accessible.
Manish Parashar Receives Achievement Award in High Performance Distributed Computing
Congratulations to Manish Parashar for receiving the 2023 Achievement Award in High Performance Distributed Computing for pioneering strategic and technical contributions, and international leadership in high performance parallel and distributed computing, computational science, and cyberinfrastructure.
Jake Bergquist Receives HRS Fellowship Award
Congratulations to Jake Bergquist who received the Heart Rhythm Society fellowship award. This is a one year, $50,000 fellowship to support research in cardiac electrophysiology.