Improving Access to High Performance, Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-Based Resources on Campus
UW-IT Research Computing
Requested:
$57,952
Status:
Funded
Awarded:
$57,952
Abstract
The Research Computing Club (RCC, formerly known as the High Performance Computing Club) has been facilitating access to high performance computing (HPC) resources since 2015 for all UW students with the generous support and funding from the UW Student Technology Fee (STF). Traditionally, RCC resources hosted on UW’s supercomputing cluster, Hyak, have been primarily CPU-based. However, the growing utilization of data science and machine learning tools have pushed students towards graphics processing units (GPUs) to significantly accelerate these computationally expensive calculations. The current, but limited, GPU-based resources provided by RCC have seen significantly increased usage since their implementation in spring of 2018. To account for this greater demand, we are proposing to develop and prototype a centralized, GPU-based, supercomputing cluster that is equipped with cost-effective consumer grade GPUs.
