San Diego State Establishing New High-Performance Computing Center

  • By Kate Lucariello
  • 03/11/24

San Diego State University (SDSU), part of the California State University system, is establishing a new computing core facility called the Technology Infrastructure for Data Exploration (TIDE) project, set to be installed and set up by April 2024 and available to researchers in May.

The project was funded by a $991,749 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and its services, starting with four campuses, will eventually be available remotely to researchers in all 23 of the CSU campuses.

TIDE will be powered by Dell PowerEdge R760XA and R760 servers, the release said. According to SDSU's TIDE page, the hardware will consist of "18 GPU nodes, 6 CPU nodes, and three storage nodes. Seventeen GPU nodes will contain 4x NVIDIA L40 48GB accelerators, and a single GPU node will host 4x NVIDIA A100 80GB accelerators to add a total of 72 GPUs to Nautilus." Storage node capability will be around 240 TB for science usage. Visit this TIDE technology link to learn more.

The new center will first be available to researchers needing advanced computing infrastructure at Cal Poly Humboldt, Cal State San Bernardino, San Diego State, and Stanislaus State, SDSU said.

TIDE is expected to bring multiple benefits to the CSU system, including the ability to:

  • Connect remotely and run large data sets for high level research in less time;
  • Give students opportunities to train and engage in high-performance computing technology, needed skill sets for upcoming careers;
  • Compete with research institutions to attract and retain quality faculty needing high computing performance;
  • Address equity issues by making this resource available to historically underserved populations, a significant percentage of whom attend CSU institutions; and
  • Connect CSU to the 50-partner National Research Platform, led by SDSU, for researchers whose projects might exceed TIDE's capabilities.

TIDE will fund support staff at collaborating institutions through graduate student assistants, according to a January 2024 SDSU release, some of whom will be cyberinfrastructure professionals funded and trained by a separate NSF partnership in 2022.

"I'm excited about what the TIDE initiative means for the CSU," said Ed Clark, chief information officer at the CSU Office of the Chancellor. "Certainly, it will benefit our current faculty members and attract new scholars working on computing-intensive research projects. But just as importantly, these resources will be used to teach our students critically needed skills that are in high demand across the country. This student aspect sets the project apart from other high-end research computing initiatives."

Visit SDSU's TIDE page to read more about the project and follow a link to the NSF funding abstract.

To read the full release, see this Cal State news page.

About the Author

Kate Lucariello is a former newspaper editor, EAST Lab high school teacher and college English teacher.

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