Editor's note: This is part of a series of virtual visits with NCSA thought leaders on current topics impacting the field of high-performance computing.

SC24 and NCSA's Focus in 2025

By Bill Gropp, NCSA Director

2024 was an amazing year for NCSA. So much so it's hard to know where to start our annual opportunity for reflection.

Just four short weeks ago, DeltaAI was accepted for production, officially launching our second U.S. National Science Foundation supercomputer in the last three years and cementing NCSA as a leading supporter of artificial intelligence research by providing the majority of GPU cycles for the NSF ACCESS program. We just received the early user-period survey and researchers were very happy with DeltaAI's performance, the support we provided and even the documentation, which, during that period, is often patchworked together. A lot of interesting research has already been done on DeltaAI, so the system's off to a really great start.

But our AI research support doesn't end there. NCSA is positioned as a major partner in two new AI initiatives that have gained momentum in 2024.

Earlier this year, NCSA joined the newly launched National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot and our Delta system remains the prominent choice of NAIRR researchers as the most requested and most awarded resource in the initial round of awards. Congratulations are in order for NCSA Deputy Director John Towns and his team for playing a significant role in the NAIRR pilot's early success. NCSA is also part of the NSF-Simons SkAI Institute. Led by by Northwestern University and announced in September, SkAI is a great example of the leadership NCSA has shown in digital astronomy while partnering with the University of Illinois astronomy department and other leading institutions in the Midwest.

That strong external partnership philosophy is also showcased in the healthcare field. The MarginDX project, funded through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is developing a health technology that combines optical imaging technologies with AI screening tools to ensure, in real-time, that tumor tissue and cells are completely removed during surgery. Led out of one of our sister institutes and building upon the wonderful partnership with the Mayo Clinic and Illinois Alliance, researchers at NCSA and across campus are playing a major role in redefining healthcare.

I'm very proud of each of these projects and the many more collaborations undertaken by NCSA this year.

SC24 Bigger and Better Than Ever

SC is always a great time for building partnerships, particularly exploring ones that are outside of the university, outside of the state and even outside of the nation. One of the things that was amazing about it was the increase in size with record numbers of attendees and exhibitors.

The growth of SC reflects the continued importance of high-performance computing, but I think it also reflects the recognition that HPC is leading the way in pushing technologies forward and I think people are recognizing this. Of course, there are many different views in how you do computing, even at large scale, and I think it's really good to be challenged by new ideas. One of the great things about SC is that you can have those discussions with people with different backgrounds and experience, work out some of those details and develop those partnerships.

In the keynote by Dr. Nicola Fox, it was interesting to see all of the intersections of computing with the NASA mission and the breadth of the NASA mission. It's a reminder that HPC is used everywhere. "HPC Is Everywhere" was the tagline from when I was conference chair at SC13 and it was reinforced in many ways by this SC. Fox discussed how defining HPC really touched on all aspects of the NASA mission, which is always fun to see. It reminded me of when people ask what NCSA does - it's hard to answer because we do so much. She spoke about the major divisions of NASA that cover a lot of ground that not everybody thinks of and that's very similar to discussions I have about NCSA. People are often surprised by the sheer variety of work in which NCSA is involved.

Impacting Illinois

NCSA is also making a major impact close to home, investing in what we hope will be long-term campus initiatives. The formation of the Office of Data Science Research is something we've been trying to do for a long time, but it's great to finally get that launched as a campus-level office to provide a nexus for community-building and information-sharing both within campus and outside the university. Also, the Research Computing Vision Committee, recently launched as part of the Boldy Illinois 2030 framework, will be making recommendations for how campus should think about support and organization of research computing, something that's been all too ad hoc in the past.

And Illinois Computes has really taken off. We're seeing many more people taking advantage of it. I'm delighted about the direction that Chuck Thompson is taking the program, the energy he's brought to it, the way he's been reaching out all over campus to ensure that both researchers are really aware of the opportunity and also that we're listening to what the researchers need.

There's a tremendous amount of good stuff to be proud of and I'm sure I've missed a bunch of things that I should have included. These ventures will position us to capitalize on the many efforts already underway or soon to be - not just at NCSA but Illinois as well.

2025 and Beyond

When looking forward, Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park is certainly an interesting opportunity for the whole state but also for NCSA in a number of areas, not just in terms of the quantum computing side but also continuing our broader engagement with another exciting, large project. Of course, we're hoping with the success of the NAIRR pilot, that additional funding will be provided to further establish the NAIRR program and establish more research resources.

We've been having some interesting discussions with some partners both in the state and in the Big Ten about shared interests in research computing infrastructure, which I think have the potential not just for sharing some infrastructure, but taking advantage of those kinds of partnerships to have deeper collaboration in shared research projects and opportunities.

One of the things that's also inspiring is we've put in more proposals this year than in previous years - up 44% over last fiscal year and more than double the total from five years ago. I'm excited about the focus on taking advantage of our expertise in computing to have a bigger impact and it's great to see that growth.

The future looks bright for NCSA, and while I'm in no hurry to grow older, I can't wait to see what we'll do next.