Argonne launches high-performance computing-backed AI research service

Argonne National Laboratory launched an AI inference service that provides researchers cloud-like access to leading artificial intelligence models. The service analyzes data, makes connections, and supplies predictions to support scientific research. It offers large language models and scientific foundation models, including commercial and in-house pre-trained options, through the national lab apparatus. The inference service runs on Argonne-based hardware, leveraging the Aurora exascale computer and additional clusters including NVIDIA DGX A100, Sophia, and the SambaNova SN40L chip cluster Metis. The platform is designed to close the gap between developing AI models and applying them in scientific work, reducing time spent managing models and enabling faster hypothesis testing, experiment refinement, and interpretation of results.

"“Our inference service helps close the gap between developing AI models and putting them to work in scientific research,” Michael Papka, the director of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, said in a press release. “By offering AI inference as a shared resource, we enable researchers to apply AI at scale to their data, simulations, and experiments, without the burden of building and maintaining their own infrastructure.”"

"Hardware powering the inference service is headquartered within Argonne. Leveraging the lab's flagship exascale computer, Aurora, the inference service will also run on Argonne's NVIDIA DGX A100 cluster, Sophia, along with the ALCF's SambaNova SN40L chip cluster, Metis."

"The models offered via Argonne's inference service - which include commercial and in-house options - are pre-trained. Granting researchers facilitated access to powerful, tailored models will help them “spend less time managing models and more time testing hypotheses,” said Venkat Vishwanath, AI and machine learning lead at the ALCF."

"“Instead of taking days or weeks to analyze data, scientists can rapidly interpret results, refine experiments and explore complex systems in ways that weren't practical before,” Vishwanath"

Read at Nextgov.com