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The San Diego Supercomputer Center, part of the School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences at UC San Diego, in collaboration with the Qualcomm Institute, recently hosted the annual National Research Platform (NRP) workshop. This year’s 6NRP event focused on the current state of NRP, led by SDSC Director Frank Würthwein, and marked another impactful year of the platform helping researchers, domain scientists, network and system administrators, and industry leaders unlock access to distributed campus-owned compute cloud and allied resources.

The NRP is a partnership of more than 50 institutions worldwide with an aim to broaden access to advanced computing resources and support innovative research in data science, AI and other fields. By providing a flexible, open and collaborative platform, the NRP bridges the gap between education and science. Externalizing this mission, the workshop included tutorials on access to the NRP, its future direction and its long-term viability and success.

With more than 125 representatives from NRP partner institutions and organizations participating, the workshop provided sessions on CENIC AIR (AI Resources), AI Education on NRP and the platform as an accelerant for widespread exploration of future technology and science. Industry leaders in attendance included representatives from The Quilt, ESnet, Internet2, ACCESS, the Open Science Grid, the National Data Platform, the Open Storage Network, the OpenAirInterface, U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) awardees and more.

“The workshop provided a unique opportunity for collaboration across sectors, ensuring that we continue to democratize and enhance the NRP,” said Würthwein, 6NRP general chair. “By bringing together networking, computing and AI experts, we are sowing the seeds for shaping the next generation of open research infrastructure.”

One of the 6NRP’s novel features was a session on curriculum development. The group chose Fusion Energy as its domain and brought together faculty from the CSU and CCC systems, fusion scientists from General Atomics and others with a strong educational interest to discuss how topics from fusion could be included in the curriculum to raise awareness and build a workforce for this growing industry. This experiment was successful, and the group will repeat it next year with a different domain of science.

Over the three-day event, key items discussed included funding opportunities and private sector interest in scaling the NRP to a national level. Attendees also explored ways to position the NRP as a fully functional, technologically inclusive and adaptable research platform.

 “The 6NRP highlighted the nationally distributed Nautilus-based National Research Platform; the California instantiation of this forward-looking initiative, CENIC AIR; and the leadership of California institutions including the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD, the California Statue Universities, and the San Diego Community College District,” explained Louis Fox, president and CEO of the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), a nonprofit organization that provides broadband networks for education, libraries, academic medical centers and research in California. “This partnership, as it engages all of higher education in California, holds the potential to become one of the largest edge-computing resources to support AI research, education and workforce development in the U.S. CENIC is honored to play a small part in such an important project.”

With sponsorship from CIENA (Gold), General Atomics (Silver), Applied Data Systems, Juniper, Tokamak Energy and Vocareum (Bronze), the 6NRP workshop affirmed the importance of collaboration between private partnerships and statewide initiatives. Attendees plan to build on the momentum generated at the workshop to advance research, ensure more accessible computing and strengthen institutional partnerships.

For more information about the NRP and future events, visit the website.