National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure

该行动执行了美国国家科学基金会与加州大学圣地亚哥分校（UCSD）国家高级计算基础设施合作伙伴关系（NPACI）之间的合作协议，在Sid Karin博士的指导下，通过美国国家科学基金会奖ASC 9619020。该合作协议将持续5年，是提交给NSF招标的“高级计算基础设施伙伴关系”（PACI） （NSF 96-31）提案的结果。PACI项目建立并取代了1985年建立的NSF超级计算机中心项目，该项目专注于高性能计算和通信领域的新机遇，提供灵活性，既适应快速发展的环境，又满足高端计算的需求，以使美国在计算科学和工程领域继续保持世界领先地位。NSF通过这个项目，将为研究人员提供访问高性能计算系统的途径，并与相关的训练有素的工作人员和研究人员一起开发和优化它们的使用。可扩展并行系统、高性能网络、高带宽和大容量海量存储系统的出现，为国家基础设施创造了机会，这些基础设施由许多地理分布的站点组成，这些站点与高端计算资源紧密相连，并通过高速通信网络相互连接。NPACI将领导国家规模元计算环境的部署和发展，这将使计算科学和工程所有领域的国家用户社区受益。该基础设施将集成计算和数据服务器，并雇用计算机和计算科学家的才能来指导其发展。它将利用许多项目的活动。元计算环境将得到扩展，不仅可以实现数字密集型计算，还可以实现数据密集型计算。为此目的，将发展和部署基础设施，以便分析从应用程序输出、遥感和仪器产生的数据以及广泛分散的特定学科数据库中收集的大量数据。创建元计算环境的三个核心技术领域最初将成为NPACI的基础：适应性强、可扩展的工具/环境；数据密集型计算;和交互环境。还选择了几个科学应用程序，这些应用程序将激励、指导和验证NPACI基础设施的开发和集成。分子科学、神经科学、地球系统科学和工程学将首先作为科学发现和技术发展的成熟领域。NPACI将把计算科学和工程教育活动整合到基础设施中，建立在合作伙伴关系中成功的教育和推广工作的基础上。将特别强调向代表性不足的少数民族、妇女和新社区伸出援手。该合作伙伴关系将专注于提供先进的硬件、使能技术、应用技术的前沿工作、教育、培训和推广。该合同包括98财年向UCSD及其合作伙伴支付的第一笔增量款项，用于支付包括设备在内的一般运营费用。

This action executes a cooperative agreement between NSF and the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI) at the University of California - San Diego (UCSD), under the direction of Dr. Sid Karin via NSF award ASC 9619020. The cooperative agreement will be operational for a period of five years and is the result of a proposal submitted to NSF solicitation, "Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure" (PACI), NSF 96-31. The PACI program builds on and replaces the NSF Supercomputer Centers Program established in 1985 The program focuses on newly emerging opportunities in high performance computing and communications, providing flexibility, both to adapt to rapidly evolving circumstances and to meet the need for high-end computation, in order to enable continued U.S. world leadership in computational science and engineering. NSF, through this program, will provide access for researchers to high performance computing systems, with associated highly trained staff and researchers necessary to develop and optimize their use. The emergence of scalable parallel systems, high performance networking and high bandwidth and large capacity mass storage systems creates the opportunity for a national infrastructure consisting of a number of geographically distributed sites strongly coupled to high end computational resources and to each other via high speed communications networks. NPACI will lead the deployment and evolution of a national-scale metacomputing environment that will benefit the national user community in all fields of computational science and engineering. This infrastructure will integrate compute and data servers, and employ the talents of computer and computational scientists to guide its evolution. It will leverage the activities of many projects. The metacomputing environment will be extended to enable not only numerically intensive but also data-intensive computing. To that end, infrastructure will be developed and deployed to enable analysis of extremely large data collections from application output, remote-sensing and instrumentation-derived data, and data in widely scattered, discipline-specific databases. Three technology areas which are central to creating a metacomputing environment will initially be the basis for NPACI: Adaptable, Scalable Tools/Environments; Data-intensive Computing; and Interaction Environments. Several scientific applications have also been chosen that will motivate, guide, and validate development and integration of the NPACI infrastructure. Molecular Science, Neuroscience, Earth Systems Science, and Engineering will initially be focused on as areas ripe for scientific discovery and technology development. NPACI will integrate computational science and engineering education activities into the infrastructure, building on successful education and outreach efforts within the partnership. Particular emphasis will be placed on outreach to underrepresented minorities, women, and new communities. The Partnership will concentrate on providing advanced hardware, enabling technology, leading edge work in application technology, education, training and outreach. Included in this award is the first incremental payment to UCSD and its partners for FY98 which covers general operating expenses including equipment.