Tag: HiPerGator AI

New NVIDIA DLI Workshop Offered in February

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The University of Florida’s ambassadorship status with NVIDIA means that faculty, students, and staff have free training opportunities in accelerated computing and applied AI. Through the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI) and in coordination with UFIT, a two-day Generative AI with Diffusion Models workshop is being offered for the first time at UF on February 22-23.

Day/Date/Time: Thursday and Friday, Feb. 22–23, from 12:00 – 4:00 p.m. each day

Location: Malachowsky Hall Auditorium – Room 1000

Register to Attend: Registration Link

The Generative AI with Diffusion Models workshop is taught by UF’s NVIDIA AI Technology Center Site Manager and Senior Data Scientist Kaleb Smith. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of denoising diffusion models to generate images from text prompts. Proficiency in PyTorch and deep learning models is required to attend, with participants who complete the 8-hour course earning a certificate of completion.

Learning highlights in this workshop include:

  • How to build a U-Net to generate images from pure noise
  • Improving the quality of generated images with the Denoising Diffusion process
  • Controlling the image output with context embeddings
  • Generating images from English text-prompts using CLIP

NVIDIA DLI workshops are in-person only and not recorded for later/repeat viewing. Anyone with questions about this workshop is welcome to contact Research Computing Training Team Lead Matt Gitzendanner.

Powering and Cooling HiPerGator: The UF Data Center

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HiPerGator, the University of Florida supercomputer, is housed in the UF Data Center (UFDC). While its power and ranking as the most powerful supercomputer in U.S. higher education is well known, not many people know about the components at the UFDC that help keep HiPerGator online and cooled.

Backup Batteries

HiPerGator and the other computers housed in the UFDC, along with the chilled water pumps and air handlers, are run by high-power batteries. These batteries ensure that the computers get clear power without spikes or brown-outs. There is enough power available in the UFDC to keep all systems operating for about 10 minutes after an external utilities power failure. During those 10 minutes, UFDC diesel generators begin providing continuing power. The diesel generator and the chillers cool their water to 55F to send to the air handlers, which then cool the air that is used to cool the computers.

Air Exchange

To get fresh air throughout the UFDC and avoid sick-building syndrome, 10% of the air inside the data hall is constantly replaced with outside air, which is cleaned by removing particles and living mold and spores.

UF Data Center Generators

The UFDC has two generators. One has a horse-power capacity of 2.25 MW and produces 1 MW of electricity if the utilities’ power becomes unavailable. A second, similar 4 MW diesel produces the remaining 2.2 MW of electricity to provide the full 3.2 MW that the UFDC is rated for.

Transparent Floor Tiles

The HiPerGator room has a raised floor of about three feet. This is because the mostly empty space is needed to allow cold air to be delivered to the front of the computers. The fans inside the computers blow the cold air past the hot CPUs, with the hot air being returned through the ceiling to the air handlers in hallways outside the 5000 sq. ft. HiPerGator room.

Air Handlers

Speaking of the air handlers, they blow hot air past the radiators that have 55F water flowing through them. All 125,000 cubic feet of air in the HiPerGator data hall must be replaced twice every minute to avoid HiPerGator overheating! The ideal temperature for the HiPerGator room? It is 60F.

Even with the cooling requirements for a supercomputer, HiPerGator is ranked high up on the worldwide green-500 computing list, and the UF Data Center is a certified LEED® building. Learn more about HiPerGator here.

Practicum AI Offered This Summer

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The Practicum AI program will be offered this summer, from June 7–July 12. Practicum AI is led by Training and Biocomputing Specialist Dr. Matt Gitzendanner.

Practicum AI is a hands-on, applied AI curriculum developed for participants with a limited coding and math background. Using hands-on exercises and graphically-based, conceptual content, learners without extensive computational skills can begin exploring applied AI. While all sessions will be available via Zoom, registrants are encouraged to attend in person for the best opportunity to learn, interact with instructors and fellow students, and to ask questions. Practicum AI will be held in the UF Informatics Institute. Registration closes May 31. Visit this link to register.

Getting Started with AI │ June 7, 1-5pm
Introduction to artificial intelligence, how it can be applied in diverse disciplines, and some key ethical considerations.
Computing for AI │ June 14, 12:30-5pm
Getting started with the foundational tools used in AI research, including Jupyter Notebooks, Git and GitHub.com, and computer clusters, like HiPerGator.
Python for AI │ July 6 and July 7, 1-5pm
Introduction to the basics of Python programming, which is the predominant language used in AI. The course assumes no prior programming experience. Participants will learn the basics of Python to begin using AI frameworks for AI research.
Deep Learning Foundations (DLF) │ July 10, July 12, and July 13, 2-3:30pm
Introduction to neural networks–how they work and how to train them. Students must attend the July 6-7 Python course to participate in the three-day DLF course.

Supporting Women in High Performance Computing and AI

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To celebrate and promote women’s participation in high performance computing and artificial intelligence, UF Information Technology is hosting a Women in HPC & AI panel discussion and luncheon event on Thursday, December 1, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. This in-person panel will be held in the UF Informatics Institute (CSE Room E252) and is free, but pre-registration is required. Lunch is included with your registration. The panelists are:

• Dr. Bonnie Dorr, Professor, Department of Computer & Information Science Engineering
• Dr. Mei He, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmaceutics
• Dr. Heidi Boisvert, Assistant Professor, School of Theatre+Dance
• Dr. Sarah Moeller, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics

Space for the event is limited. Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) is an international organization working to build a diverse and inclusive workforce by promoting the role of women in computing. UF’s Women in HPC & AI is the local chapter of WHPC. Its aim is to offer mentoring opportunities and resources for female students, faculty, and staff while building a strong cross-disciplinary professional network across UF. Anyone with questions is welcome to email Applications Specialist and AI Support Team Lead Ying Zhang.

Medical Imaging for AI Research Inquiries

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UFIT is hosting two MONAI-focused tutorials in July. Both tutorials will be held via Zoom:

Tutorial Name: MONAI Core
Date: Tuesday, July 12, 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Registration Link
Description: MONAI Core is a PyTorch based and GPU-accelerated deep learning framework, specifically designed for medical imaging. This tutorial will cover:
• Why MONAI Core: the unique and impactful features of MONAI Core
• MONAI Core on HiPerGator: end-to-end demo on HiPerGator

Tutorial Name: MONAI Label for Medical Imaging with NVIDIA
Date: Tuesday, July 26, 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Registration Link
Description: MONAI Label is an open-source medical-imaging-specific tool for both AI-assisted annotation and building your own AI annotation models. This tutorial has two parts:
• An in-depth MONAI Label introduction
• A step-by-step demo on HiPerGator

MONAI is a freely available, community-supported, PyTorch-based framework for deep learning in healthcare imaging. MONAI provides domain-optimized foundational capabilities for developing healthcare imaging training workflows in a native PyTorch paradigm. Anyone with questions about the MONAI tutorials or other training opportunities offered by UFIT Research Computing may contact Dr. Matt Gitzendanner.

Saira Hasnain Named Associate VP

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On March 24, VP and CIO Elias Eldayrie announced the promotion of Saira Hasnain, Ph.D., to associate vice president and deputy CIO. In this role, Saira will continue to oversee the Infrastructure and Communication Technology department while also helping UFIT achieve the goals in the 2020-2025 UF Strategic Plan for IT.

Hasnain’s additional responsibilities include assisting Eldayrie by:

1. Providing leadership and guidance in critical areas of technology planning and strategy.
2. Developing a roadmap to improve UFIT service quality and overall operational effectiveness.
3. Providing leadership, direction, and support at the institution, state, and national level, with broad-reaching institutional and statewide impact
4. Acting on behalf of UFIT as needed or, in the absence of the VP and CIO, serve as the principal UFIT officer on executive decisions and executive-level committees.

Since joining UFIT in 2016, Saira has demonstrated significant leadership, leading consolidation efforts to enhance service delivery for academic, research, and administrative needs. Under her leadership, the UF Data Center upgrade was the strategic enabler to implement UF’s supercomputer HiPerGator AI. She also led UFIT’s implementation of the OneIT initiative by completing the IT rationalization efforts in voice communication, email, DNS, networking, storage, and cloud technologies. Saira’s transformational leadership style fosters a strong culture of quality, transparency, and innovation, elevating the entire organization and creating standards of excellence.

Optimizing Performance on the NVIDIA Platform

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UFIT is offering a 90-minute tutorial, “Performance Analysis and Optimization on the NVIDIA Platform,” on April 14. The tutorial is free and open to faculty, students, and staff.

Tutorial: Performance Analysis and Optimization on the NVIDIA Platform
Date: Thursday, April 14, 2022
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Pre-registration is required

The tutorial will be lead by an NVIDIA scientist who will present an introduction to performance analysis on accelerated CPU-GPU servers. Attendees will learn how to use NVIDIA Nsight Visual Studio profiling tools to understand the behavior of AI and high-performance applications to determine what optimization steps are appropriate for improving the overall time-to-solution.

Registrants will be sent the secure Zoom link the day before the tutorial. Anyone with questions about this event may contact UFIT’s AI Team Lead and Senior Application Developer Ying Zhang.

Two New UFIT Brochures for Campus

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UFIT has new brochures on two of our most popular services.

2022 UFIT Help Desk Flyer
Besides updating services and support available, the UF Computing Help Desk flyer also sports a new, alternative name: the UFIT Help Desk. Both names are still correct, but the UFIT Help Desk is a modernized nickname that has become a common reference…so we’ve built the nickname into the 2022 flyer graphics.

2022 HiPerGator Trifold Brochure
The 2022 HiPerGator trifold brochure was developed for use inside the UF Data Center (UFDC). Getting a tour of the UFDC and HiPerGator Room has become a significant component of the research faculty recruiting process. The new trifold brochure gives potential faculty hires, along with state government officials and other constituents visiting the data center, an updated accounting of the compute power, number of cores available, storage, and speed of HiPerGator 3.0 and AI.

State Faculty Presenting at Spring HiPerGator Symposium

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Registration is now open for the Spring 2022 HiPerGator Symposium. The symposium will be held virtually (hosted on Zoom) and showcase the research in artificial intelligence being conducted by faculty and students from the University of Florida and researchers utilizing HiPerGator from institutions in the Sunshine State Education & Research Computing Alliance (SSERCA).

The date and time for the symposium is Thursday, Mar. 24, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. There will be more than a dozen presenters, including:

Jayantha Obeysekera, Florida International University [“Understanding, Prediction, and Modeling of Flooding due to Sea Level Variability in Coastal Regions Using Data Mining and AI Methods”]
Sudeep Sarkar, University of South Florida [“Scaling Up Computer Vision Algorithms for Image and Event Recognition”]

The full list of presenters will be available on the spring symposium webpage. Students, faculty, and staff of Florida institutions, as well as Southeastern Conference universities and national constituents, may register to attend. Registrants will receive the Zoom link and sign-in information prior to the symposium. Questions about the Spring 2022 HiPerGator Symposium may be emailed to Dr. Erik Deumens, director, UFIT Research Computing.

UF and Nvidia Co-Hosting Hackathon

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UF and Nvidia, in collaboration with OpenACC, are jointly hosting the UF Hackathon from March 29–April 6, 2022. The deadline for teams to apply is
Feb. 21, with selected teams being notified shortly thereafter.

UFIT’s AI team, along with Nvidia AI staff, will serve as mentors to help teams parallelize and optimize code for GPU acceleration. UFIT is also providing HiPerGator AI as the work platform for the UF Hackathon. Teams from the University of Florida have priority during the application process, but teams from other Florida universities and all SEC universities are also able to apply.

The UF Hackathon is a multi-day, intensive hands-on event designed to help computational scientists and researchers port and optimize their applications using GPUs. It pairs participants with dedicated mentors experienced in GPU programming and development in AI, high performance computing, and data science applications. The event will utilize computing resources from HiPerGator AI, currently ranked as the 2nd most powerful supercomputer in U.S. higher education.

Participating teams will leave the event either with applications running on GPUs or a clear roadmap of next steps to leverage GPUs. Anyone with questions about the UF-Nvidia Hackathon may contact Ms. Ying Zhang, applications specialist and AI team lead for UFIT.