Research Cyberinfrastructure

We are at a critical point with our research cyberinfrastructure, where we need to replace critical infrastructure now and invest in additional high-performance computing capturing the momentum of ACER and ensuring adequate compute resources and support staff to directly benefit the research capability at UIC and advance our mission.

What is Research Cyberinfrastructure Heading link

Research cyberinfrastructure and computing includes multiple technologies in support of advanced research in a number of disciplines as well as expertise and staffing to support the needs of faculty in their work. This includes high-performance computing, storage, data transfer, and related for both low and high-risk data.

In 2014, the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Research (ACER) was created and established the first high-performance computing environment after extensive work with governance and senior leadership.This represented a positive sea change in research computing at UIC.

Despite this success, UIC continues to lag behind other R1 institutions in this infrastructure due to lack of sustainable growth in funding and a critical refresh of our original HPC investment is necessary. This area is also hindered by lack of investment in both the network and data centers, as detailed above, as it is reliant on both for performance and extensibility.

Research is paramount to UIC’s mission and ACER has proven the value of cyberinfrastructure (CI) in research and grant funding capability.

Himanshu Sharma  |  Director, Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Research

Research Goals Heading link

Modernize Cyberinfrastructure (CI)
Research constructed a strategic plan and roadmap detailing out needs for advancement and modernization of cyberinfrastructure over a five-year period.

Expand HPC capabilities
Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Research (ACER) was created and established the first high performance computing environment after extensive work with governance and senior leadership. This represented a positive sea change in research computing at UIC. Despite this success, UIC continues to lag behind other R1 institutions in this infrastructure due to lack of sustainable growth in funding and a critical refresh of our original HPC investment is necessary.

Grow research support services
Invest in consulting, training, and other support services that can be offered to researchers, instructors and students.

Benefits

  • Attract New Faculty
  • Provide Exploratory CI Resources to All Faculty & Research Staff
  • Broaden CI Adoption to non-STEM Research Community
  • Increase Funding Competitiveness in Data & Computational Science
  • Improve institutional compliance posture around research data
  • Provide necessary technology infrastructure for fulfilling current and future science drivers.

Risks

  • Loss of research data
  • Limited options to store large scale research data
  • Barrier to entry for social sciences in using computing resources
  • Security and compliance risk with silo infrastructure

Research Roadmap Heading link

Research road map.
Updated 12/2021

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