The National Science Foundation has awarded the Pervasive Technology Institute at Indiana University a $10m grant to deploy Jetstream 2.

A distributed cloud computing system intended to support on-demand research, artificial intelligence, and enhanced large-scale data analyses, Jetstream 2 is designed to be used by researchers with limited experience at using high-performance computing and software resources.

Opening up computing resources

The cloud will consist of five computational systems totaling eight petaflops, with the primary system located at Indiana University. The four smaller regional systems deployed nationwide at partners Arizona State University, Cornell University, the University of Hawai’i, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center.

The systems will use AMD Epyc processors, Nvidia A100 GPUs, and 18.5 petabytes of storage.

“Jetstream 2 builds on the tremendous success of the original Jetstream system at IU and with our partners,” Brad Wheeler, IU vice president for IT said.

“It bundles computation, software, and access to storage for individuals and teams of researchers who span hundreds of areas of research and who work at the frontiers of scientific inquiry. It further expands IU’s many technology and research partnerships across the nation.”

David Y. Hancock, Jetstream 2 principal investigator and director for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure in University Information Technology Services (UITS), said that his team hopes Jetstream 2 will allow more researchers and educators to gain access to compute resources, dubbing it 'AI for Everyone.' "Through the use of virtual infrastructure, including virtual GPUs, we will be able to provide more access to high-end technologies to enable deep learning and artificial intelligence techniques,” Hancock said.

The previous Jetstream system has been used by thousands of researchers across the US since launching in 2014, and is currently part of the Covid-19 HPC Consortium, a supercomputing collective pooling resources to fight the ongoing pandemic.