NSF Commits $30M to Three Expeditions in Computing Projects

January 11, 2016

Jan. 11 — The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced $30 million in funding to three Expeditions in Computing projects. Each grant will provide $10 million over five years to interdisciplinary, multi-investigator research teams to support transformative computing and information technology research. The Expeditions projects constitute the largest single investments in computer and information science research NSF has made.

The three projects are led by researchers at Princeton University, Boston University and Cornell University, and include scholars at 14 colleges, universities and labs across a wide range of disciplines. The projects aim to explore the frontiers of theoretical computer science, synthetic biology and computational sustainability. They will pursue new formal methods for software development, a novel toolkit for computational bio-design and a large national and international network of computational sustainability researchers.

The Expeditions in Computing program catalyzes far-reaching research motived by deep scientific questions that have the potential for significant societal benefit. Examples include the development of robotic bees, advances in software-defined networking and new programming models that make data analytics faster. The grants enable concurrent research advances in multiple disciplines, which is often necessary to stimulate deep, enduring outcomes.

“The Expeditions in Computing program enables the computing research community to pursue complex problems by supporting large project teams over a longer period of time,” said Jim Kurose, NSF’s head for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. “This allows these researchers to pursue bold, ambitious research that moves the needle for not only computer science disciplines, but often many other disciplines as well.”

Initiated in 2008, the Expeditions program has funded 19 projects to date, with a total investment of approximately $190 million. The program has had transformative impacts on numerous fields ranging from robotics to next-generation networking to hardware circuit design. Earlier projects are beginning to transition their innovations to practice through follow-on funding from industry. (Learn more about past Expeditions projects.)

The new Expeditions projects announced today are:

The Science of Deep Specification — Principal Investigator: Andrew Appel, Princeton University; partnering institutions: University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This new NSF grant aims to eliminate software “bugs” that can lead to security vulnerabilities and computing errors by improving the formal methods — or the mathematically based techniques — by which software is developed and verified.

The researchers’ initial challenge will involve dissecting the complexity of modern hardware and software to uncover factors that determine how various computer components work together. The next step entails developing “deep specifications” — precise descriptions of the behavior of software elements based on formal logic. These deep specifications will enable engineers not only to build bug-free programs, but to verify that their programs behave exactly as they intend.

“In our interconnected world, software bugs and security vulnerabilities pose enormous costs and risks,” Appel said. “When you press the accelerator pedal or the brake in a modern car, for instance, you’re really just suggesting to some computer program that you want to speed up or slow down. The computer had better get it right.”

The team will also develop new courses and curricular materials at their universities to train the next generation of software developers to use the new, improved methods.

Evolvable Living Computing — Understanding and Quantifying Synthetic Biological Systems’ Applicability, Performance, and Limits  Principal Investigator: Douglas Densmore, Boston University; partnering institutions: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Labs

The field of synthetic biology has made great strides and yielded tremendous benefits in recent years. For example, early synthetic biology efforts led to the production of antimalarial drug precursors in quantities not seen in nature. Using biological building blocks to engineer biological systems, however, has been difficult without a clear design methodology and supporting quantitative metrics that researchers can use to make decisions.

This NSF grant will support efforts to create a systematic set of guidelines to carefully measure and catalogue biological parts that can be used to engineer biological systems with predictable results. These guidelines will allow researchers to better understand what computing principles can be applied repeatedly and reliably to synthetic biology.

“This puts a stake in the ground to make synthetic biology more rigorous,” said Douglas Densmore, associate professor at Boston University. “We want to build a foundation that’s well understood and that can serve as an open-source starting place for many advanced applications.”

The grant marks the first time researchers will explicitly explore computing principles in multiple living organisms and will openly archive the results.

CompSustNet: Expanding the Horizons of Computational Sustainability — Principal Investigator: Carla Gomes, Cornell University; partnering institutions: Bowdoin College, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Howard University, Oregon State University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University

Computational sustainability aims to apply computational techniques to balance environmental, economic and societal needs to support sustainable development and a sustainable future.

CompSustNet will act as a large national and international multi-institutional research and education network, collaborating with key governmental and non-governmental organizations in the areas of conservation, poverty mitigation and renewable energy. The researchers will use computational techniques and methodologies to increase the effectiveness of the management and allocation of natural and societal resources.

“Our NSF Expedition brings together computer scientists and engineers, environmental and social scientists, physicists, and materials scientists charged with growing and expanding the horizons of the nascent field of Computational Sustainability,” Gomes said. “Advances in computational sustainability will lead, for example, to novel strategies to help herders and farmers in Africa improve their way of life, save endangered species and scale renewables up to meet 21st century energy demand.”

Gomes led a team that received one of the first Expeditions grants in 2008. Initial funding from NSF led to more than $80 million in support from other agencies and organizations and helped stimulate the field of computational sustainability. As a result of the pioneering efforts of the original Expeditions grant, universities are starting to teach computational sustainability as a discipline in its own right.

Source: National Science Foundation

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from its predecessors, including the red-hot H100 and A100 GPUs. Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. While Nvidia may not spring to mind when thinking of the quant Read more…

2024 Winter Classic: Meet the HPE Mentors

March 18, 2024

The latest installment of the 2024 Winter Classic Studio Update Show features our interview with the HPE mentor team who introduced our student teams to the joys (and potential sorrows) of the HPL (LINPACK) and accompany Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the field was normalized for boys in 1969 when the Apollo 11 missi Read more…

Apple Buys DarwinAI Deepening its AI Push According to Report

March 14, 2024

Apple has purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI according to a Bloomberg report today. Apparently the deal was done early this year but still hasn’t been publicly announced according to the report. Apple is preparing Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimization algorithms to iteratively refine their parameters until Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimizat Read more…

PASQAL Issues Roadmap to 10,000 Qubits in 2026 and Fault Tolerance in 2028

March 13, 2024

Paris-based PASQAL, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum computers, yesterday issued a roadmap for delivering systems with 10,000 physical qubits in 2026 a Read more…

India Is an AI Powerhouse Waiting to Happen, but Challenges Await

March 12, 2024

The Indian government is pushing full speed ahead to make the country an attractive technology base, especially in the hot fields of AI and semiconductors, but Read more…

Charles Tahan Exits National Quantum Coordination Office

March 12, 2024

(March 1, 2024) My first official day at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was June 15, 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 loc Read more…

AI Bias In the Spotlight On International Women’s Day

March 11, 2024

What impact does AI bias have on women and girls? What can people do to increase female participation in the AI field? These are some of the questions the tech Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Analyst Panel Says Take the Quantum Computing Plunge Now…

November 27, 2023

Should you start exploring quantum computing? Yes, said a panel of analysts convened at Tabor Communications HPC and AI on Wall Street conference earlier this y Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Training of 1-Trillion Parameter Scientific AI Begins

November 13, 2023

A US national lab has started training a massive AI brain that could ultimately become the must-have computing resource for scientific researchers. Argonne N Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire