Another year, another Supercomputing Conference successfully staffed. U.S. National Science Foundation ACCESS staff recently spent the week at SC25 supporting the ACCESS booth in St Louis. Staff greeted visitors to the booth and handed out our swag. We introduced conference attendees to our experts and answered a wide range of questions about what ACCESS can do for researchers.
ACCESS Resource Providers (RPs) were also at the annual conference, many with their own booths. ACCESS RPs have long been recognized by HPCwire for their efforts in making world-class research possible. They work tirelessly to ensure researchers have the resources they need to accelerate their research and maximize the potential impact of their findings. In addition to the HPCwire awards given to the ACCESS program this year, affiliated Centers took home a number of awards that utilized ACCESS resources. Here are the awards that recognized the outstanding work done on resources allocated through ACCESS:
PSC
Best Use of HPC in Physical Sciences
PSC was recognized along with an international team of researchers that used JWST data and simulations on supercomputers, including Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC)’s Bridges-2 and San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)’s Expanse, to identify and date three brown dwarfs in one of the Milky Way galaxy’s globular clusters for the first time. The scientists gained time on the high-performance computers via ACCESS, NSF’s network of supercomputing centers, in which PSC is a leading member.
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Best Use of HPC in Energy
Researchers at NCSA and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a deep learning operator, based on a virtual sensing digital twin and trained on the NVIDIA GH200-powered DeltaAI HPC cluster, to monitor inaccessible nuclear reactor locations in real-time. The work delivers predictions of critical and previously unmeasurable parameters 1,400× faster than traditional simulations, surpassing the limits of conventional sensors and AI methods.
Best Use of HPC in Industry (Automotive, Aerospace, Manufacturing, Chemical, etc.)
Researchers from the University of Illinois, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and NCSA have developed a novel generative AI model, trained on NCSA’s Delta system. The model enables inverse design of complex patterned polymers by rapidly generating multiple high-fidelity manufacturing solutions from desired pattern images, and advances AI-driven materials design through HPC.
Indiana University (IU)
Best Use of HPC in Energy
Two graduate students from Tennessee State University leveraged ACCESS resources on Jetstream2 to reveal how biochar and optimized nitrogen use can improve soil health, reduce emissions, and support sustainable biofuel production. This research points toward scalable agricultural practices that can cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce farmer reliance on costly fertilizers, and strengthen bioenergy and food security for society at large.
San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
Best Use of HPC in Life Sciences
Researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and the University of Florida used the Expanse HPC system at SDSC to make a groundbreaking discovery about the characterization of hemodynamics in blood vessel sprouts. The work created a foundation for better understanding and prediction of how new blood vessels grow.
Best Use of HPC in the Cloud
The NSF-funded Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project at SDSC provides in-depth support to research groups. The effort concentrates on using the NVIDIA DGX cloud platform with a focus on optimization of system setups, performance monitoring, and determining the best ways to run NSF’s National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot projects on the resources.
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
Best Use of HPC in Physical Sciences
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), UC San Diego/Scripps, and UT Austin built a real-time tsunami digital twin using the HPE Cray supercomputer El Capitan and TACC systems Frontera, Lonestar6, Stampede3, and Vista. The system turns ocean pressure sensor data and physics-based models into localized forecasts in under 0.2 seconds, which is about 10 billion times faster than traditional methods. This achievement cuts false alarms and speeds credible warnings.
Best Use of HPC in Financial Services
Cornell University researchers leveraged ACCESS allocations on TACC’s Stampede3 to model how debt relief design and mortgage firm behavior shaped the U.S. foreclosure crisis. This produced insights that earned international recognition in regulatory economics.