New research computing division gets strong leader

By UW-IT News & Announcements

Xiao Zhu, a research computer expert with the knowhow to help other researchers across the University of Washington to meet their evolving computing needs, is UW-IT’s new Associate Vice President for Research Computing.

“It is my belief that Xiao will skillfully support the UW in its role as a world leader in research,” said Andreas Bohman, UW-IT’s Vice President for UW Information Technology and CIO. “I am also confident that Xiao’s commitment to fostering innovation, collaboration and diversity in higher education will be a significant contribution to the UW’s mission and vision.”

Zhu was chosen from among a strong field of finalists to lead the new Research Computing Division in UW-IT, which reorganized in the past year to better serve the University’s needs.

UW and UW-IT leaders recognize that research computing is a key differentiator for the UW and it needs to continue to grow in this area to meet the needs of an innovative and fast-moving research community.

The Research Computing Division’s primary mission is to empower and facilitate groundbreaking research, foster innovation and support researchers across the university.

One of its goals is to provide the best computing resources available, in-house tools and expertise and unwavering support to everyone, whether they’re seasoned researchers or students just getting under way.

Through its new division, UW-IT is committed to enabling best practices that not only enhance the quality of research outcomes but also mitigate funding risks associated with computational endeavors.

“I am thankful to everyone who participated in the selection process,” Bohman said. “I especially appreciate the work from the recruiting firm Next Generation Partners, LLC and the search committee chaired by Xiaosong Li, Associate Vice Provost for Research Cyberinfrastructure, and made up of leaders across the University.

Xiao’s experience, in both the private and public sectors, encompasses research computing leadership, deep technical expertise, and securing external funding for research infrastructure. Most recently, he served as Senior Technical Consulting Engineer at Intel, where he was immersed in innovative technologies that support research computing.

Xiao’s education includes earning a Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MBA from Purdue University, his employer prior to Intel. Xiao also holds a Bachelor of Science in Polymer Materials and Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China.

While at Purdue as a Senior Research Scientist, Xiao designed and delivered cost-effective services to meet the evolving cyberinfrastructure needs of researchers, including the deployment of GPU resources for ML/AI. He also played a pivotal role in securing over $20 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, which facilitated deployment of the Anvil Supercomputer for the national science and engineering community.

Additionally, at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, Xiao was instrumental in deploying and later enhancing one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers at the time, while providing support to scientific computing communities.

Keep Duo Mobile updated; Duo no longer supporting earlier mobile device operating systems

Android devices using operating systems 9, 8 and Apple devices using iOS version 13 or earlier will no longer be able to download the latest version of Duo Mobile nor receive Duo Mobile maintenance fixes and security updates, starting Feb. 9, 2023. Please keep Duo Mobile updated. Make sure your devices’ operating systems are up to date so that you can update Duo Mobile to its latest version, and so that your device can receive Duo’s security and maintenance fixes.

New Year, New Devices: Top Five Apps to Set Yourself Up for Success in 2024

Ring in the New Year with the ultimate digital toolbox for your new smartphones, tablets and laptops! The UW offers many software downloads for students, faculty and staff. But if you don’t know where to start, here are the top five to set yourself up for success with your new devices.

Students

1. Scout

Find study spots, campus food, and tech items with Scout, available as both web and mobile apps. Filter study spaces by criteria such as lighting, ambient noise, proximity to food and availability of amenities to find the perfect match at all three campuses.

Students, Faculty and Staff

2. MyUW

Get all things UW right at your fingertips with the MyUW mobile app. It’s perfect for accessing everyday resources without having to sign in with your UW NetID every time.

3. Husky OnNet

Husky OnNet is UW’s preferred VPN that allows you to connect to campus resources no matter where you are. With it, you’ll never have to worry about leaving your assignments, work or research behind!

4. Sophos Anti-Virus protection

Keep your fresh start secure by bolstering your defenses. Get Sophos Anti-Virus protection for free and install it on up to ten devices.

5. Duo

Last but not least, remember to set up Duo for 2FA on your new phone or tablet!

Besides these top must-haves, check out ITConnect for all your new tech needs! Still need help? Email us at help@uw.edu or start a chat with us online.

Making language models accessible to all

Video by Sam Han | Text by Ignacio Lobos | UW-IT Communications & Engagement

Tim Dettmers, center. Artidoro Pagnoni, right.

Something that easily gets lost when people talk about working with large language models such as ChatGPT is cost and the unbelievable amount of power needed to run them.

That’s where Tim Dettmers, a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, comes in. His work is focused on machine learning and large language models, with the ultimate goal of making them more widely accessible to a larger field of researchers.

There are plenty of bright people all over the U.S. and the world who have a lot to contribute to the emerging language model field, but often they lack access to computational resources to do their own research.

But Dettmers has found a way to allow researchers to work with these large models on a simple laptop — and perhaps not too distant into the future, allowing you and I to train our own language models on our smart phones.

Learn what he is doing on this video about his work, and the future of language model research.

“What our research is showing is that you don’t need the expensive servers that can be like $50,000 or more expensive” to work with the largest of the language models now available, Dettmers said. “You can use a consumer (computer) so people can set up at home and use these things at home.”

But their work also extends beyond merely using open source language models. “You can take it and make it your own. You can personalize it, you can fine tune it on your data. This is very powerful,” he said.

“I want to make our work as widely accessible as possible for the people with the least resources … and accelerate research so we can figure out more things about language models and how to use them well,” he said.

Partnering with UW-IT to make it happen

Dettmers and his colleagues have been doing their research on Hyak, the University’s own supercomputer, which is managed by UW-IT. Hyak, Dettmers said, has accelerated their work and made it possible to use large language models — and to personalize them, which is an even more difficult undertaking.

“Research computing at the University of Washington is just a game changer,” Dettmers said. “We need so much computational resources in our research. Hyak (makes it possible) to do the work that we need to do in order to stay at the cutting edge.”