High-performance computing (HPC) is a cornerstone of modern research, and through the U.S. National Science Foundation–funded Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) program, students and researchers across the nation can use powerful systems to accelerate discovery. At the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California San Diego School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences, that access is also helping introduce undergraduate students to supercomputing earlier in their academic careers.

Faculty are incorporating SDSC’s Expanse supercomputer — an ACCESS resource — into coursework so students can gain hands-on experience running simulations, analyzing data and working in real HPC environments. Rather than learning computational concepts only in lectures, students interact directly with the same infrastructure used by researchers nationwide.

Integrating ACCESS resources into undergraduate courses helps build computational skills and confidence while expanding the pipeline of students prepared to use advanced cyberinfrastructure. These experiences give students a practical introduction to large-scale computing and highlight how HPC supports research across disciplines.

A recent story from UC San Diego explores how SDSC is bringing ACCESS-enabled computing into the classroom through Expanse. Read the full article to learn how early exposure to supercomputing is helping prepare the next generation of researchers and innovators.

And, to learn how to get your own allocation on Expanse and additional ACCESS resources, get started here.

Resource Provider Institution(s): San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
Resources Used: Expanse
Affiliations: UC San Diego
Funding Agency: NSF 
Grant or Allocation Number(s): CHE250215

The science story featured here was enabled by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s ACCESS program, which is supported by National Science Foundation grants #2138259, #2138286, #2138307, #2137603, and #2138296.