Purdue University

Purdue University's community cluster program, which has included 18 major systems since its inception in 2004, has become the reference model for campus computing nationwide. Research Computing delivered more than 350 million computational hours to faculty partners in 2019. More than 200 faculty partners and their students from Purdue's three campuses, all primary colleges and 60 departments, now use Purdue's clusters for research in the sciences, engineering and social sciences. Research Computing faculty partners accounted for over half of the record $520 million awarded to Purdue researchers in 2019. Research Computing is at the forefront of the efforts to teach data science to all, through the use of Scholar, a cluster that was used by more than 4,000 students in 84 courses in fall 2019. Purdue backs its clusters with state-of-the-art network and storage systems and expert staff support. The staff and student employees in Purdue’s Envision Center use the latest technology to collaborate with clients to create virtual reality and data visualization tools for research and educational use, collaborate on grant proposals and develop promotional media such as animated videos. The center’s clients including 57 Purdue faculty members in 36 different academic departments. This year, Purdue was awarded $10 million from the NSF for Anvil, a powerful supercomputer that will increase the capacity available to XSEDE, which serves tens of thousands of researchers across the US and in which Purdue has been a partner for the past nine years. By building Anvil, which will enter production in 2021, alongside its community cluster supercomputers, Purdue will leverage its existing campus cyberinfrastructure.