Above the Fold
- Applications now open for $60,000 NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Awards here
- The Anthropocene: what it means
Generative AI Infrastructure for MIT Researchers
Information Systems & Technology (IS&T) and the Office of Research Computing and Data (ORCD) are actively engaged in several projects to support generative AI capabilities that will benefit research at MIT. These projects explore emerging and optimal methods to meet the AI needs of researchers across campus, including in areas ranging from AI safety studies to the integration of AI in teaching and in basic research and beyond. Some key projects are:
- A pilot of an experimental research platform for applied AI (and beyond) across all of MIT, backed by $15M+ in philanthropic funding and including: regularly updated GPU hardware and standardized software; open training data and models; professional support staff; seed funding for contributing research projects
- 500KW new infrastructure at the MGHPCC zero CO2 data center, accommodating both ORCD- and PI-owned hardware.
- Subsidized cloud resources, including Office 365 Copilot (currently available), which includes GPT-4 access; experiments with AWS Research and Engineering Studio including Amazon Trainium access; Lambda Labs One Click Cluster (currently under development)
Researchers can contribute ideas and suggestions by emailing orcd-help@mit.edu. See the full news story on our website.
What We’re Reading
- Science and Nature cause paper cuts
- Why heat destroys quantum mechanical entanglement
- Legislation on the energy cost of generative AI
- DoD moving toward stronger cybersecurity practices for some sponsored research starting in 2025
- How does society navigate geoengineering?
Fall 2024 Student Jobs
ORCD is hiring MIT students to work with us during the fall 2024 semester.
Gain exposure to professional skills for potential careers in areas such as research software engineering; learn about different areas of research where computing is being applied; and create your own research computing work examples.
See the full job description for more information about the role and the application process.
Meet the Team: Sam Corey, Junior Research Computing Support Specialist
Sam recently completed an MA in Computational Social Science from the University of Chicago, where his research focused on applying ML models to HR analytics. As part of this program, he spent lots of time collaborating with others to conduct social science research using data science techniques on the University’s local computing cluster. He earned a BA in psychology from Biola University in Southern California with a minor in mathematics. He is excited to further his career in research computing at MIT!
Sam was born in the North Shore but grew up in Orange County, California. Having moved back to New England, some of his goals are to eat more seafood and watch the Head of the Charles. In his free time, he likes to go on runs, cook meals, and read.
ORCD Around Campus
- September 3: Stop by ORCD’s table at the Graduate Student Resource Fair at the Johnson Athletics Center Ice Rink in W34.
- Ongoing: Drop in for office hours with our team Tuesdays from 10-11AM ET in 46-4199 and Thursdays from 2-3PM ET in the GIS & Data Lab in Rotch Library (building 7).
HPC and Research Computing Events
- 28th Annual IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Virtual Conference: September 23-27, online.
- HPEC is the largest computing conference in New England and is the premier conference in the world on the convergence of High Performance and Embedded Computing. We are passionate about performance. Our community is interested in computing hardware, software, systems and applications where performance matters. We welcome experts and people who are new to the field.
- Second Annual US Research Software Engineer Association Conference, October 15-17, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- This year's theme is Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: A celebration of all that RSEs have done for computing in the past, in the present, and in the future.
- SC 24, November 17-22, 2024, Atlanta, Georgia.
- The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis
- The Program is designed to share best practices in areas such as: algorithms; applications; architectures and networks; clouds and distributed computing; data analytics, visualization, and storage; machine learning and HPC; performance; programming systems; system software; and state of the practice in large-scale deployment and integration.