The Value of HPC for Scientific Research and the Roles of NSF and NIST

There is increasing evidence that high-performance computing is not only becoming one of the most important methods for conducting advanced research, but also that HPC-based research has higher impact. I will discuss such evidence and present recent activities and plans of NSF’s Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (ACI) in support of HPC research. This support includes an ever-evolving national network of computational and data resources, with two new systems in service this year as well as next year. I will also discuss the need for shared services that represent the glue between these resources. They have an essential role in enhancing productivity and building the community. The talk will conclude with a brief discussion of future roles of funding agencies in supporting computational and data-enabled research.

Speaker Bio: Rudolf (Rudi) Eigenmann is a Program Director at the National Science Foundation's Division for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (ACI) in the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering. He manages programs in ACI's high-performance computing (HPC) cluster. Among others, he serves as the cognizant program officer for the XSEDE (xsede.org) project and the Petascale Resource Allocation (PRAC) program, which awards computing resources of the Blue Waters machine. Dr. Eigenmann serves at NSF as a rotator from Purdue University, where he is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science in 1988 from ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

Presentation Slides: PDF

Note: Visitors from outside NIST must contact Cathy Graham; (301) 975-3800; at least 24 hours in advance.