ODU Researchers Win $2 Million NSF Grant

to Build a Next-Gen Computational Cluster

Congratulations to Dr. Hongyi Wu, Dr. Jingwei Huang, Dr. Masha Sosonkina, Dr. Khan Iftekharuddin, and Dr. Nikos Chrisochoides for winning a $1.5M NSF grant, with additional University matching funds of $645K, for the next-generation shared computational cluster at ODU.

The new cluster will include the latest generation microprocessor architecture (Intel Xeon Skylake), high-memory nodes (>= 384 GB/node), and latest NVIDIA V100 graphics processors specifically designed for deep learning. The new cluster will have a high-performance, low-latency Infiniband fabric capable of data transfer speeds of 100 Gbps. Built using OpenStack technology, this cluster will enable flexible configurations to satisfy researchers' needs beyond traditional HPC. Custom environments such as virtual machines, instructional clusters, and data-analytics-as-a-service will be possible with the new cluster.

Once completed, ODU researchers will carry out cutting-edge, compute- and data-intensive research involving deep learning, advanced modeling, and big data analytics in fields such as cybersecurity, biomedical and aerospace engineering, resiliency, and many more.