$2,000 Grant Will Help Fund Operations, Raise Program’s Visibility in Challenging COVID Year Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been a banner learning season for the Pittsburgh Data Jam. For the third time this academic year, the program for encouraging Pittsburgh-region high school students to consider careers in data science and other STEM fields has been recognized for its efforts: On March […]

PSC’s Big Data and AI Supercomputer Replaced by New Bridges-2 Platform

From the vastness of neutron-star collisions to the raw power of incoming tsunamis to the tiny, life-and-death details of how COVID-19 progresses, the Bridges platform at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) has seen it all. Now Bridges has taken its final bow, ceding the title of PSC’s flagship high-performance computing (HPC) system to the larger, more advanced Bridges-2.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has funded PSC and collaborators with $1.5 million in two separate awards. The state’s 2020-21 budget includes a line item for $500,000 to fund activities at PSC not covered by the organization’s research grants. The money will support PSC’s workforce development efforts and other non-technical outreach activities. Funding by the state is also important in remaining competitive for larger federal and […]

The horrible power of tsunamis—vast waves generated by earthquakes under the sea—has time and again devastated islands and coastlines near the deep ocean, where most of these events occur. But in 1908, against all expectations, a deadly tsunami hit the city of Messina, coming up the narrow, shallow strait between Sicily and mainland Italy. Modern scientists’ attempts to identify the geological fault that generated the […]

17th Annual HPCwire Awards Presented to Leaders in the Global HPC Community Artificial intelligence (AI) studies spanning from the tiny to the huge—from small molecules for fighting the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the enormous forces between colliding neutron stars—powered by PSC, have received separate HPCwire Editors’ Choice Awards this year. PSC has been recognized in the annual HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards, presented digitally during the virtual 2020 International Conference for […]

Lab, Computer Experiments to Improve Simulations of Signaling between Nerve and Muscle cells, Offering Clues to Treating a Type of Neurological Disease A new $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will continue a lab-computer collaboration that accurately simulated communications between nerve cells and muscle cells. The project has immediate applications in treating a type of neurological disease called Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS). It also […]

  Sept. 1, 2020 HuBMAP (the Human BioMolecular Atlas Program) has released its inaugural data for use by the scientific community and the general public. Included in this release are detailed, 3D anatomical data and genetic sequences of healthy tissues from seven organ types, at the level of individual cells as well as many bulk tissue datasets. HuBMAP’s ultimate goal is to provide the framework […]

Slower and Noisier Aug. 3, 2020 It seems strange to talk about “quiet” versus “noisy” collisions of neutron stars. But many such impacts form a black hole that swallows all but the gravitational evidence. A series of simulations using PSC’s Bridges platform and other supercomputers by a Penn State scientist suggested that, when the neutron stars’ masses are different enough, the result is far noisier. […]

The National Science Foundation Awards $5 million to the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to Build Neocortex, an AI Supercomputer that Will Introduce Revolutionary Technologies June 9, 2020 A $5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) award will allow the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) to deploy a unique high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) system. Neocortex will introduce fundamentally new hardware to greatly speed AI research. PSC, a joint research […]

Saying Goodbye to Our Friend   We at PSC are deeply saddened by the passing of Rich Brueckner, leader of insideHPC. For many years, Rich drew on his industry-wide insights to communicate the impact of our field, its companies, and its contributors. Rich’s enthusiasm and optimism drove the countless interviews he conducted for insideHPC. For those of us who had the privilege of working with […]

 

COVID-19 Pandemic, Isolation an Opportunity for Pittsburgh-Area High Schoolers to Learn Data Science It begins with a data-driven discussion of the national plan to reopen safely. Brian Macdonald, director of data science at a leading healthcare data analysis company, reviews the plan to phase out the quarantine based on continuous two-week decreases in COVID-19 cases in a given state. His audience is not who you […]