December 2024

The ACCESS Advance is a monthly newsletter produced by the U.S. National Science Foundation's ACCESS (Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support) program. It contains science stories enabled by ACCESS, program news and opportunities for users.

In this Issue

STEP Accepting Student Applications
DeltaAI Allocations Available Via ACCESS
Maximize ACCESS Proposal Window Opening Soon
Sign Up for Website User Testing
Spotlight: Sage Edge Computing Platform

Opportunities

Events and Trainings

Community Announcements

Science Stories

enabled by ACCESS

Undergraduate Leads LLM Workshop in Oregon

Ian Ingram,an undergraduate computer science student at Southern Oregon University, recently led a workshop that introduced ACCESS allocations and support alongside an array of large language model (LLM) concepts to a diverse audience of student participants.

Read the full story here

Buffalo Undergrad Gains Real-World Experience with ACCESS

University at Buffalo sophomore Rodney Garnett recently completed an internship with the ACCESS Metrics team, where he honed his coding skills while working on the XDMoD Python API, a powerful data analytics framework.

Read the full story here

From the Classroom to Supercomputers

After two years as an ACCESS researcher, University of Kentucky senior Aiden Hamade has done more than fill his resume – he's been transformed into a confident and skilled software developer, equipped with real-world experience in everything from coding to leadership.

Read the full story here

What's New?

Student Training and Engagement Program (STEP) Now Accepting Applications

ACCESS Operations is accepting applications to its STEP program now through Feb.15, 2025. STEP is a three-phase program intended for undergraduates or early-career graduate students interested in pursuing careers in cyberinfrastructure. Hear first-hand about the 2024-25 STEP experience from past STEP cohort members and learn how to apply at the links below.

STEP student experiences

Learn more/apply to STEP

DeltaAI Allocations Now Available Via ACCESS

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has launched DeltaAI, an advanced AI computing and data resource, allocable through ACCESS, that will be a companion system to NCSA’s Delta. Funded by nearly $30 million in awards from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and also accessible to researchers across the country through the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot, DeltaAI enables scientists and researchers to address the world’s most challenging problems by accelerating complex AI, machine learning and high-performance computing applications running terabytes of data by using state-of-the-art hardware, including the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip.

Maximize ACCESS Proposal Submission Window Opening Soon

The next window for submitting Maximize ACCESS proposals will open on Thursday, Dec. 12 and close on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. Awards will start April 1, 2025. From the Maximize ACCESS opportunity that closed in September, the Allocations Team awarded nearly 1.6 billion CPU hours and more than 4 million GPU hours to 90 projects. The average project received 90% of the resources requested, and the current portfolio of ACCESS-allocated resources has room to award even more time to meritorious proposals. Information on preparing a successful Maximize ACCESS proposal – including two videos – can be found on the Allocations website. You can also learn more at upcoming training webinars at 2 p.m. ET on Thursday, Dec. 12 and Tuesday, Jan. 21. After this proposal submission period ends, the next submission window will be June 15 – July 31, 2025, with awards starting in October 2025.

How to prepare and submit a Maximize ACCESS request

Sign Up for Website User Testing

Having recently updated our web presence, we're looking for folks in our community willing to spend about an hour helping us with some user testing after January 1. You may be eligible to receive up to $1,000 in CCEP funding for your effort! We're looking for researchers, educators, graduate students, Resource Providers (or potential providers) and general community members. If you're interested, please fill out the very brief form at the link below.

Spotlight

Sage Edge Computing Platform Enables "AI at the Edge for Science"

The Sage Edge Computing Platform is no ordinary CPU, GPU or storage resource, but a unique platform, a “new kind of national-scale cyberinfrastructure to enable AI at the edge for science.” The ACCESS community can learn more about Sage in the ACCESS Resource Catalog under “Northwestern U Sage Edge Computing Platform.” Sage is a distributed, intelligent sensor network that enables researchers to explore AI techniques to better understand natural and built environments. Throughout vast areas that span the U.S. and beyond, more than 100 Sage nodes with instruments such as cameras, microphones, and weather sensors directly connected to programmable AI-enabled computers can quickly analyze large data streams. Sage applies machine-learning algorithms to the data from these intelligent sensors, and then builds reusable software to run programs within the embedded computer. It then transmits the results over the network to central computer servers. Access to specific Sage nodes, as well as protected image and audio data for model training, is available subject to signing a data use agreement. Pictured is a portion of the NSF-funded Sage testbed at Argonne National Laboratory.

Visit the Sage website

Learn about Sage allocations through ACCESS

ACCESS Website

Events & Trainings

Community Announcements