MRI: Acquisition of Dolly Sods GPU Cluster for Accelerated High-Performance Computing and Applications in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in West Virginia

该项目将使西弗吉尼亚大学(WVU)能够获得名为Dolly Sods的专用图形处理单元(GPU)集群。Dolly SoDS将是西弗吉尼亚大学发展利用大数据、人工智能(AI)和机器学习(ML)能力的目标的关键驱动力，以使在药物开发、星际现象、生物识别、材料设计以及商业物流和管理等广泛领域进行变革性研究。与西弗吉尼亚州的其他高等教育机构合作，这些能力的发展将反过来导致培训一支支持人工智能的西弗吉尼亚州劳动力队伍，他们可以利用他们的技能来加强与地区高性能计算(HPC)中心的当前关系，并与联邦和行业合作伙伴建立新的关系。为第一代大学生、女大学生和来自边缘社区的学生创造培训机会，将有助于计算密集型劳动力的多样化，对西弗吉尼亚州来说将是无价的。最后，此次收购将有助于保持美国在人工智能发展方面的领先地位。研究计算界对硬件加速器(例如GPU)的快速采用促进了ML和AI方法的计算能力和应用程序的大幅提高，以解决每个STEM领域和商业数据分析等非传统领域的大数据问题。对Dolly SoDS集群的请求收购将使尖端研究能够在肿瘤诊断成像、小分子药物设计的高通量筛选、星际现象的即时检测、空间飞行中使用的数据压缩算法的设计和优化、医学图像的计算机视觉以及基于业务的管理决策和系统/过程分析的信息学等方面进行。这项研究将使西弗吉尼亚大学走在将ML和AI整合到数据驱动研究结构中的运动的前沿，使及时和相关的科学和社会问题得到解决，并为由24名教职员工和92名博士后、研究生和本科生领导的下一代数据科学家提供培训机会。Dolly SoDS还将作为新成立的数据科学本科学位的不可或缺的教学资源，该学位将在整个课程中纳入ML和AI。结合对全州高等院校的推广，Dolly Sods将继续努力培训多样化的HPC员工队伍，这些员工来自STEM历来代表性不足的社区，包括第一代大学生、女性和其他代表性不足的群体。该项目将加强与地区联邦实验室(能源部国家能源技术实验室、NOAA环境安全计算中心、NASA独立验证和核查设施以及联邦调查局刑事司法服务司)、工业合作伙伴(Leidos和PPG)以及全国领先的ML和AI中心(匹兹堡超级计算中心(PSC))的伙伴关系。它将进一步推动西弗吉尼亚大学将经济困难的阿巴拉契亚地区转变为技术部门投资的顶级目的地的长期目标。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will enable West Virginia University (WVU) to acquire a special-purpose graphics processing unit (GPU) cluster called Dolly Sods. Dolly Sods will be a critical driver of WVU's goal of developing capabilities in utilizing big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to enable transformational research in a broad range of fields encompassing drug development, interstellar phenomena, biometrics, material design, and business logistics and management. In conjunction with other institutions of higher learning in West Virginia, development of these capabilities will in turn lead to training an AI-ready West Virginian workforce that can leverage their skills to strengthen current relationships with regional high performance computing (HPC) centers as well as forging new relationships with federal and industrial partners. The creation of training opportunities for first generation college students, female students, and those from marginalized communities will aid in the diversification of the computationally intensive workforce and will be invaluable to West Virginia. Finally, this acquisition will contribute to keeping the United States at the forefront of AI development.The rapid adoption of hardware accelerators (e.g., GPUs) in the research computing community has facilitated massively increased compute capability and application of ML and AI approaches to solving big data problems in every STEM field and non-traditional fields like business data analytics. The requested acquisition of the Dolly Sods cluster will enable cutting-edge research for efforts in diagnostic imaging of tumors, high-throughput screening of small molecule drug design, on-the-fly detection of interstellar phenomena, design and optimization of data compression algorithms used in space flight, computer vision of medical images, and informatics of business-based managerial decisions and system/process analysis, among others. This research will put WVU at the forefront of the movement to integrate ML and AI into the fabric of data-driven research, allowing for timely and relevant scientific and societal issues to be addressed as well as providing training opportunities for the next generation of data scientists, led by 24 faculty in conjunction with 92 postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Dolly Sods will also serve as an integral teaching resource for a newly formed undergraduate degree in Data Science, which will incorporate ML and AI throughout the curriculum. Combined with outreach to statewide institutions of higher learning, Dolly Sods will drive continued efforts in training a diverse HPC workforce, drawing from communities historically underrepresented in STEM, including first generation college students, women, and other underrepresented groups. The project will strengthen partnerships with regional federal labs (DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, NOAA Environmental Security Computing Center, NASA Independent Validation and Verification Facility, and the FBI Criminal Justice Services Division), industrial partners (Leidos and PPG), and the nation’s leading center for ML and AI (Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC)). It will further WVU’s long-term goal of transforming the economically disadvantaged region of Appalachia into a top-level destination for investment from the technology sector.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.