[March 19, 2024]

CENIC Honors San Diego State University and the San Diego Supercomputer Center for their Roles in Developing the Technology Infrastructure for Data Exploration (TIDE) Project

CENIC is pleased to present the 2024 Innovations in Networking Award for Equitable Access to Cyberinfrastructure to the Technology Infrastructure for Data Exploration (TIDE) Project. TIDE is a partnership between San Diego State University and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), and it extends the CENIC AI Resource (CENIC-AIR), the California portion of the National Research Platform, beyond SDSU to three additional CSU campuses: CSU San Bernardino, Cal Poly Humboldt, and CSU Stanislaus. The CENIC Innovations in Networking Awards recognize exemplary people, projects, and organizations that leverage high-bandwidth networking.

This new CSU TIDE cyberinfrastructure, which is interconnected and accessed via the CENIC network, is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF Award #2346701). The project was spearheaded by Jerry Sheehan, now Chief Information Officer at the Salk Institute, during his time as CIO at San Diego State University.

"Innovation arises by building upon the groundbreaking work of others. (TIDE) exemplifies this springboard approach to innovation by leveraging the CENIC network's robust foundation and our partners' computational expertise at the San Diego Supercomputer Center," Sheehan stated. "This collaboration has enabled the establishment of a transformational computational core at San Diego State University, which will serve as a pivotal resource for the entire California State University (CSU) system. We are honored to receive the CENIC Equitable Access award, recognizing our commitment to advancing technological infrastructure and promoting equitble access to cutting-edge research and educational opportunities."

A truly remarkable aspect of this effort is that it originated and was organized within the CSU, the largest and most diverse higher education system in America. In addition to computer and storage resources, TIDE provides more access to high-performance computing resources for CSU researchers and their students.

"It is a great honor to receive this award," said SDSC Director Frank Wuerthwein. "As much as we are excited about our work with CENIC, SDSU, and the CSU system, we expect that this is just the beginning. We hope to build on it with AI training programs like the CIP Fellows Award (NSF Awards # 2230127, 2017767), and replicate it nationwide by working with CENIC's peers across the USA.

Through CSU's connection to CalREN, participating institutions can "burst" to more extensive national resources through integration into the 1,200 GPU nodes and 21,000 CPU-cores of the NRP. A partnership of more than 50 institutions nationwide, led by researchers and cyberinfrastructure professionals at UC San Diego, NRP is a national open-access, scalable cyberinfrastructure for research and education grown through the in-kind contributions of its user community.

Larry Smarr, professor emeritus at UC San Diego, states, "We are excited to see NRP usage rapidly expanding from the original 25 research universities comprising the Pacific Research Platform (PRP). The California subset of the NRP, the CENIC AI Resource (CENIC-AIR), is available for use by all CENIC member institutions for both research and education purposes. The NSF TIDE Award will accelerate the engagement of CENIC-AIR across the CSU system."

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are opening new career paths for students at all levels who will become the next facilitators of academic research and private sector innovation, with the potential to transform society in positive and beneficial ways. CENIC-AIR provides California's research and education communities a platform to enable their faculty and students to constructively contribute to this transformation and collaborate extensively with colleagues nationwide over the same shared Kubernetes-orchestrated infrastructure.

Tom DeFanti, principal investigator at UC San Diego and CENIC, also finds the potential of improved NRP access exciting and states, "Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning is primarily an experiential science-one learns by doing-and CENIC-AIR is a great launching pad for faculty and students all over California. Just as SDSU is doing, CENIC-connected campuses can also host on-premises compute and data nodes that become part of CENIC-AIR, taking advantage of the NRP's node administration and CENIC's advanced network services and expertise."

Louis Fox, CENIC's CEO, highlighted that "it is always gratifying to see how our members use the CENIC network as a platform to advance research and education and, in doing so, inspire other segments and create new opportunities for them which, in turn, motivates the CENIC team to advance our networks and services."

About CENIC | www.cenic.org

CENIC connects California to the world-advancing education and research statewide by providing the world-class network essential for innovation, collaboration, and economic growth. This nonprofit organization operates the California Research and Education Network (CalREN), a high-capacity network designed to meet the unique requirements of over 20 million users, including the vast majority of K-20 students together with educators, researchers and others at vital public-serving institutions. CENIC's Charter Associates are part of the world's largest education system; they include the California K-12 system, California Community Colleges, the California State University system, California's Public Libraries, the University of California system, Stanford, Caltech, USC, and the Naval Postgraduate School. CENIC also provides connectivity to leading-edge institutions and industry research organizations around the world, serving the public as a catalyst for a vibrant California.

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