MRI:Acquisition of a Multi-Purpose High-Performance Computing Infrastructure for Machine Learning and Computational Research at Temple University

This project will provide new research computing equipment for Temple University. Faculty and students from disciplines such as Biology, Chemistry, Computer and Information Sciences, Mathematics, and Physics, will benefit as well as other disciplines, who use computation as a primary tool in their research. The equipment consists of three components: (1) a storage device, (2) sets of processors optimized for empowering machine learning applications, and (3) high-performance processing units tuned for large-scale computational calculations.

This equipment will complement existing investments at Temple and help drive undergraduate research plus educational activities across the entire campus.

Computational science, chemical physics, evolutionary biology, materials science, biophysics, data analytics, and genomics are major research themes in the College of Science & Technology. Various research centers and institutes reflecting these themes will be empowered by the new high-performance computing equipment. In addition, the equipment will broadly impact research in machine learning, computer vision, big data, nano-scale science, neuroscience, as well as initiatives in energy and health.

The new equipment will greatly enhance current computing facilities and enable transformational research over a broad front. Temple is Philadelphia’s public university with an enrollment of about 35,900 graduate, professional, and undergraduate students. It boasts a diverse student body.

Temple has one of few computing centers in the region that can go beyond minimal services and promote and support collaboration and cooperation among K-12 and STEM education, government agencies, and local industry. Temple addresses needs for scientific training in business environments with its Professional Science Master’s programs; the wide expertise in computational sciences has led to development of programs with strong computational components, e.g., Bioinformatics and High-Performance Computing.

The new infrastructure will foster research and educational experiences that embrace local and regional communities and empower entrepreneurial research activities that contribute to economic growth in the region. The new equipment will be procured, assembled, and operated by the High-Performance Computing staff in the College of Science & Technology.

The website https://www.hpc.temple.edu provides information about available resources, how to get access, user guides, usage statistics, and usage policies. The staff will be responsible for running the associated tutorials, workshops, and conferences that are designed to benefit the user base not only at Temple but also in the local and regional research communities.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.