February 2025 - Physics-Departmental-Computing

Potential action needed - Action Access to ML/AI resources in college and nationally
by David Colling 26 Feb '25

26 Feb '25

Dear All, There are two items to which I wanted to draw your attention. I was just going to send this to the departmental computing list but because of the short notice that the first item requires I decided to send it to the academic staff list as well. If you are going to reply to the first item then please do work with the members of the computing committee from your community. For this we need (rough) replies by the end of the week. ###################################################################### Item 1 -------- A proposal was put to UMB before Christmas for an AI facility to be funded over several years. With an initial investment of £3M, increasing in subsequent years. The proposal initially came from DoC but UMB only agreed to it (and only the first phase initially) on the basis it was open to all of college. The plan is for the resource to be available by late summer 2025. This resource is to be used for both research and teaching. A group has been set up to determine what this will resource will look like. This includes the hardware, the software stack and the operating model. This group met for the first time last Friday and after some discussion decided that while we had the use cases from DoC we didn't know if these were suitable for the rest of the college. Given the short time scale it is unlikely that we will choose anything exotic this year and will probably stick to something like nvidia H200 GPUs - unless somebody puts forward a good reason to be more diverse. So I am trying to gather use cases from physics and the rest of FoNS by the next meeting - which is a week on Friday. These don't need to be polished at this stage, but if you can supply as much technical detail as possible it will be very helpful - for example one person I was chatting to said that there application was dramatically sped up by use of GPUs (which they use at other sites), but that it still doesn't use much of the GPU - which is interesting as the H200 can be divided up into different sized sub units. In order to gather everything together by the end of next week across FoNS I would be grateful if we could have drafts from physics by roughly the end of this week so that we can combine with others next week. So the sort of information that I would need would be: - The title of the application - whether it be research or teaching - A brief description: "Tau lepton ID at the LHC" or "LLMs for second year lab" or "MCMC for limit setting code" etc etc - The scale of the resources that you would like to use if it were to be available. - If you have any hardware preferences or information about scaling with hardware. - Any pieces of the software stack that you would deem essential or really useful. This can be as simple as "we need pytorch" or "we teach using jupyter-notebooks" to detailed OS considerations. - Any thoughts on the best operating model that would suite you. Again these can be simple such as "we need a little interactive time followed by very long (2 week) batch jobs" or "we need interactive access for teaching classes 3 times a week in the first term" to much more detailed answers if they apply to you. As I say, please do work with the member of the computing committee in your team and get (rough) drafts to me by the end of the week. ##################################################################### Item 2 -------- On a similar note I would like to draw your attention to the AIRR expressions of interest call that has just come out (end of last week). This is for access to the large scale national AI resources at Isambard-AI and Dawn Compute service. The call can be found at: https://engagementhub.ukri.org/ukri-infrastructure/airr-eoi/ If people are putting EoIs then I would be grateful if they kept me informed - I will help where I can. ######################################################################## Best, david

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Access to ML/AI resources in college and nationally
by Bantges, Richard J 26 Feb '25

26 Feb '25

On behalf of David Colling: Hi All, My apologies that this is rather last minute - I have had a really heavy cold for the last couple of days. I have seen no complaints against 13:00 so we will meet meet then. For those in college I have booked Blackett 532. Please can I ask Rich B. to book a Teams meeting the appropriate Teams channel (and to circulate the link). The questions that we need to answer tomorrow are really things like: - The shape of the hardware - how much memory on the cards. - The amount of RAM on the server per card - Te nature and speed of the "disk" (or whatever plays that role). - What mixture of batch and interactive access - Ability to run on multiple GPU for big models. - etc etc If we do this and keep a catalogue of the use cases then I think that we have done all we can for now. Best, david ________________________________________________________________________________ Microsoft Teams Need help?<https://aka.ms/JoinTeamsMeeting?omkt=en-US> Join the meeting now<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OThhOTJkMDUtZDU3ZS00…> Meeting ID: 360 731 265 493 Passcode: Ko679o9e ________________________________ For organizers: Meeting options<https://teams.microsoft.com/meetingOptions/?organizerId=a7b4b95d-7e98-4113-…> [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/ict/assets/IMPERIAL_Wordmark_RGB_Blue_safe_area_…] Privacy and security<https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administration-and-suppor…> ________________________________________________________________________________

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Agenda for tomorrow
by David Colling 10 Feb '25

10 Feb '25

Dear All, My apologies all for not circulating this earlier. Also below is teams location for those not in college. Those in the team will have received this already, but I do know that the teams channel and this list membership can sometimes drift and this is the definitive list. I will try to put them back in sync tomorrow morning. For those in college, I have booked Blackett 532. We have a lot to discuss tomorrow so we will need to remain focussed. These items are: - Update from RCS - slides provided Andy Richards - Other Updates from ICT - Okan? - Cyber Security status and plans - slides to be provided by Tom Willson - FAIR Data - 3 RCS-TAG questions (see end of mail). Please have a look and a think answers. - Software Licenses (general - especially Liz and may be Okan) - Physics RSEs - AoB Best, david Teams location: ================== Join the meeting now <https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OTFjNmNjYTctYjY1MS00…> Meeting ID: 371 614 154 727 Passcode: XJ6TB35U TCS-TAG questions: =================== There are 3 question areas we now need to make decisions on in order to progress HX3. 1. Hardware: As an AI focussed platform, assumption that this is predominantly GPU based, and Nvidia is the leading choice at this time for the Phase 1 install. But which Nvidia GPU(s) within the limited initial £3M budget. Note, this system will be installed along side HX2 in a new data centre and the core, underpinning, data centre costs and support for cooling is covered separately. 2. Software: The ask from Department of Computing and across the AI community is for a platform that is more ‘interactive’. We have experimented for IX-Cloud with the LICO software from Lenovo. Other options include developing an OpenStack based approach or adoption of solutions such as Run.AI. Or others? If there is experience of knowledge of other approaches at other institutes, we would appreciate your input and to whom we engage over the coming months to make a decision. 3. User Operating Model: To ensure the new HEX-AI platform meets its goals of supporting researchers and teaching across the university around AI we need to discuss and agree on what we actually mean by this. For whom is the platform targeted? As RCS is predominantly research focussed only in its support model at present we need to develop and agree an operating model that includes support staff across the university. We need this approach to a joined up operating model to ensure best practice and existing knowledge from within departments, especially around teaching, is brought together. A virtual team approach is needed to complement core underpinning activities in ICT.

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Physics Computing Meeting - short notice - please fill in by end of Thursday.
by David Colling 06 Feb '25

06 Feb '25

Dear All, My apologies for the short notice. I had taken my eye off the timings and was reminded today that we have an FCC a week from today. As you know I like to have the Physics meeting in the run up to the FCC and so we have little time. I also have an other computing meeting in our lunchtime slot on Monday. So I have created a doodle poll at: https://doodle.com/group-poll/participate/e9GvZZJb If none of these days work then we will just have to meet after the FCC but let's see if there is a date. As well as the usual updates from RCS and the rest of ICT, the major thing that I want to discuss is cyber security as there is a lot going on in that space. There are also a couple of other smaller items that I will add. I have explicitly added Tom WIllson (not sure if Tom is on our list) and James Toner to cover different aspects of the security brief. Please tell me of anything else that you would like to add. Best, david

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