In March of 2020, recognizing the potential of High Performance Computing (HPC) to accelerate understanding and the pace of scientific discovery in the fight to stop COVID-19, the HPC community assembled the largest collection of worldwide HPC resources to enable COVID-19 researchers worldwide to advance their critical efforts. Amazingly, the COVID-19 HPC Consortium was formed within one week through the joint effort of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and IBM to create a unique public-private partnership between government, industry, and academic leaders. This article is the Consortium's story-how the Consortium was created, its founding members, what it provides, how it works, and its accomplishments. We will reflect on the lessons learned from the creation and operation of the Consortium and describe how the features of the Consortium could be sustained as a National Strategic Computing Reserve to ensure the nation is prepared for future crises.
In March of 2020, recognizing the potential of High-Performance Computing (HPC) to accelerate understanding and the pace of scientific discovery in the fight to stop COVID-19, the HPC community assembled the largest collection of worldwide HPC resources to enable COVID-19 researchers worldwide to advance their critical efforts. Amazingly, the COVID-19 HPC Consortium was formed within one week through the joint effort of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and IBM. The Consortium created a unique public-private partnership between government, industry, and academic leaders to provide access to advanced HPC and cloud computing systems and data resources, along with critical associated technical expertise and support, at no cost to researchers in the fight against COVID-19. The Consortium created a single point of access for COVID researchers. This article is the Consortium's story-how the Consortium was created, its founding members, what it provides, how it works, and its accomplishments. We will reflect on the lessons learned from the creation and operation of the Consortium and describe how the features of the Consortium could be sustained as a National Strategic Computing Reserve (NSCR) to ensure the nation is prepared for future crises.
CREATION OF THE CONSORTIUMAs the pandemic began to significantly accelerate in the United States, on March 11 and 12, 2020, IBM and the HPC community started to explore ways to organize efforts to help in the fight against COVID-19. IBM had years of experience with HPC, knew its capabilities to help solve hard problems, and had the vision of organizing the HPC