A lot has changed in high performance computing in the past five years. The rise of AI, new power and cooling demands, and an ever-changing supply chain are just a few of the challenges faced by anyone who is planning a new HPC system.

These challenges are especially daunting for those at smaller institutions. At Advanced Clustering Technologies, we’ve spent more than 20 years specializing in the support of these institutions. Our experience and expertise brings needed value and support to those making these plans for their institutions. 

Our President and CTO, Kyle Sheumaker, delivered the keynote address at the Research Computing at Smaller Institutions (RCSI) on June 3 at Swarthmore College. His presentation, “A Guide to Building HPC/AI Systems in 2025,” is an important resource if you are facing the challenge of acquiring, configuring and maintaining an HPC system at a smaller institution.

We encourage you to submit the contact form on this page in order to download his presentation.  

In the presentation, Kyle explores a number of important topics including:

• Your hardware options in 2025 including the mainstream choices, AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon, as well as the alternatives including ARM and RISC-V
• Making an informed decision when it comes to GPUs. They are now commonplace for most HPC systems, and a requirement for large scale AI systems. They also are expensive, especially when you consider power and cooling requirements.
• How to choose interconnects based on your needs.
• The pros and cons of the primary types of storage solutions for HPC.
• Making sure your datacenter has the cooling and power infrastructure in place to support the HPC system you’re planning.
• Tips for configuring an HPC system that meets the needs of your users.

The presentation is a deep dive into the technical knowledge you need to have in place to successfully implement a new HPC system for your small institution.