National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure

这一行动执行了国家科学基金会和加州大学圣地亚哥分校国家先进计算基础设施合作伙伴关系之间的一项合作协议，在Sid Karin博士的指导下通过国家科学基金会奖ASC 9619020。该合作协议的有效期为五年，是提交给NSF邀请函《先进计算基础设施伙伴关系》(PACI)的提案的结果，NSF 96-31。PACI计划建立在1985年建立的NSF超级计算机中心计划的基础上，并取代该计划。该计划专注于高性能计算和通信领域新出现的机会，提供灵活性，既能适应快速变化的环境，又能满足对高端计算的需求，以便使美国在计算科学和工程领域继续保持世界领先地位。通过这项计划，NSF将为研究人员提供使用高性能计算系统的途径，并配备相关的训练有素的工作人员和研究人员，以开发和优化它们的使用。可扩展的并行系统、高性能网络以及高带宽和大容量大容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上分布的站点组成，这些站点强烈耦合到高端计算资源，并通过高速通信网络相互连接。NPACI将领导部署和发展全国性的元计算环境，这将使全国计算科学和工程领域的用户群受益。这一基础设施将整合计算和数据服务器，并雇用计算机和计算科学家的人才来指导其演变。它将利用许多项目的活动。元计算环境将得到扩展，不仅支持数字密集型计算，还支持数据密集型计算。为此目的，将开发和部署基础设施，以便能够分析从应用程序产出中收集的超大数据、遥感和仪器数据，以及广泛分散的特定学科数据库中的数据。对于创建元计算环境至关重要的三个技术领域最初将是NPACI的基础：可适应、可扩展的工具/环境；数据密集型计算；以及交互环境。还选择了几个科学应用程序，以激励、指导和验证NPACI基础设施的开发和整合。分子科学、神经科学、地球系统科学和工程学最初将作为科学发现和技术发展的成熟领域而被重点关注。NPACI将在伙伴关系内成功的教育和推广努力的基础上，将计算科学和工程教育活动纳入基础设施。将特别重视对代表性不足的少数群体、妇女和新社区的宣传。该伙伴关系将集中于提供先进的硬件、使能技术、应用技术方面的前沿工作、教育、培训和推广。这项奖励包括98财年向UCSD及其合作伙伴支付的第一笔增量付款，其中包括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.