Wyoming Supercomputing Center

Wyoming Supercomputing Center
Name	Wyoming Supercomputing Center
Established	2011
Type	Research facility
Location	Laramie, Wyoming, United States
Affiliation	University of Wyoming
Director	(see Governance)
Website	(omitted)

Wyoming Supercomputing Center is a high-performance computing facility located in Laramie, Wyoming affiliated with the University of Wyoming and intended to support statewide and regional computational research. The center provides infrastructure for computational science, data-intensive analysis, and modeling for academic, industry, and government partners including collaborations with National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and regional institutions. It serves as a hub connecting researchers from the University of Wyoming, Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, and national consortia for projects in energy, atmospheric science, biology, and geoscience.

Overview and Mission

The center's mission aligns with the strategic plans of the University of Wyoming and statewide initiatives promoted by the Wyoming Governor's office and the Wyoming Legislature. It was conceived to advance research priorities reflected in programs at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The facility aims to enable scalable simulations used by investigators supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, and private energy firms such as ExxonMobil and Shell plc. Partnerships extend to regional universities including Colorado State University, Montana State University, University of Utah, and the University of Colorado Boulder.

History and Development

Planning for the center involved stakeholders from the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Business Council, and consultants with experience at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. Federal grants from the National Science Foundation and state appropriations supported construction, with project milestones tied to procurement timelines similar to those at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and Texas Advanced Computing Center. The inaugural systems were installed following procurement cycles influenced by vendor relationships with corporations such as IBM, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Cray Inc.. Development phases mirrored trends seen at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the Purdue University Research Computing Center.

Facilities and Architecture

The building was sited near the University of Wyoming campus with proximity to regional fiber conduits connected to the Internet2 network and peering points used by National LambdaRail and regional research networks. The site architecture incorporated climate control strategies comparable to facilities at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and energy-efficiency approaches promoted by the U.S. Department of Energy's office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Physical security and access policies were developed in line with standards used by Fermilab and CERN. The data center design included raised-floor layouts, redundant power distribution similar to designs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and emergency systems akin to those at Columbia University's computing centers.

Hardware and Performance

The center has hosted clusters built from commodity x86-based nodes and accelerators from vendors aligned with deployments at NVIDIA-accelerated sites and systems featuring many-core processors from Intel and AMD. Performance benchmarks were assessed with suites like High Performance Linpack and workload managers comparable to implementations of Slurm Workload Manager and PBS Professional. Storage systems combined parallel file systems used by projects at EMC Corporation-backed sites and object storage paradigms similar to deployments at Facebook research clusters. Networking leveraged high-speed interconnects reminiscent of InfiniBand fabrics deployed at Riken and other national centers. Use cases have ranged from petascale-class simulations to data-intensive pipelines similar to workloads run by the Broad Institute and the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Research Applications and Projects

Researchers have applied the center's resources to climate modeling projects related to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments, hydrology simulations used by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and reservoir modeling for companies such as Chevron Corporation. Computational biology efforts interface with databases maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information and modeling frameworks used in projects at the Sanger Institute. Geoscience simulations connect with workflows at the U.S. Geological Survey and seismic analyses employed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Collaborative projects include energy systems modeling consistent with initiatives at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and precision agriculture research analogous to programs at the United States Department of Agriculture.

Governance, Funding, and Partnerships

Oversight involves governance models drawing on experience from the University of Wyoming administration and advisory input from researchers affiliated with the National Science Foundation and national laboratories including Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. Funding sources have included state capital appropriations from the Wyoming Legislature, federal grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, and cost-recovery agreements with corporate partners such as Boeing and energy firms. Partnership frameworks mirror consortia arrangements used by the XSEDE program and regional collaboratives like the Front Range GigaPoP.

Access, Training, and Outreach

Access policies provide allocation mechanisms akin to peer-reviewed programs administered by the National Science Foundation and campus-level allocations used at the University of California, Berkeley. Training programs include workshops modeled after curriculum from the Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry organizations, and researcher support mirrors user services at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and San Diego Supercomputer Center. Outreach includes K–12 engagement coordinated with the Wyoming Department of Education and public events similar to open days held at the Smithsonian Institution and science museums. Collaborative training activities have been conducted with professional societies such as the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Category:Supercomputer sites in the United States