NHR PerfLab Seminar: How to rapidly deploy and deliver a highly sustainable national Exascale AI research resource? (July 30, online)
Title: How to rapidly deploy and deliver a highly sustainable national Exascale AI research resource?
Speaker: Sadaf Alam, Director of Advanced Computing Strategy, University of Bristol, UK
Date and time: Tuesday, July 30, 2024, 2:00-3:00 p.m. CEST
Slides: NHR-PerfLab-Alam-July2024.pdf
Abstract
Isambard-AI is one of the national UK’s Artificial Intelligence Research Resources (AI RR) offering Exascale AI compute capabilities. AI RR will be available to research communities aligned with the stated mission of investigating safety and security of AI models, large language models (LLMs), AI for science and foundational AI topics that are expected to significantly influence sciences and our societies. The Isambard-AI phase 1 system is ranked number 2 on the June 2024 Green500 list of supercomputing platforms. Isambard-AI has been setting and breaking records as being one of the quickest systems to be deployed, from procurement to operations in less than 6 months. Early users have begun leveraging the Isambard-AI platform for a diverse range of research including machine learning models for biomolecular design, AI models for translational discovery research and investigations into the skin tone biases for skin cancer. The talk will include updates on Isambard AI platform, which is deployed in a modular, containerised data centre. It uses direct liquid cooled Cray HPE EX cabinets for maximum power efficiencies and a small physical footprint. AI compute power is delivered via Nvidia Grace-Hopper GH200 superchips.
Short bio
Sadaf Alam is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Isambard supercomputing Digital Research Infrastructures (DRIs) and director of strategy and academia in the Advanced Computing Research Centre at the University of Bristol, UK. She is responsible for digital transformation for research computing and data assets management services. Prior to joining Bristol, Dr Alam was the CTO at CSCS, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre. She was chief architect for two generations of Piz Daint innovative flagship supercomputing facilities and MeteoSwiss operational weather forecasting platforms. She was technical lead for European supercomputing centres’ federation project called Fenix. From 2004-2009 Dr Alam was a computer scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), USA, and a staff scientist at the ORNL Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). She studied computer science at the University of Edinburgh, UK, where she received her PhD. She was a founding member of the Swiss Chapter of Women in HPC.
For a list of past and upcoming NHR PerfLab seminar events, see: https://hpc.fau.de/research/nhr-perflab-seminar-series/