All Things AI — August 2025

Posted on By Daphne McCanse

Welcome to All Things AI, your quick-hit listing of opportunities, upcoming events, and training related to the NAIRR Pilot and other AI Initiatives. See the complete list of NAIRR Pilot Events and Training.

  • The NAIRR Pilot has new start-up allocations available. Based on feedback from the research community, the NAIRR Pilot is now offering rapid approval start-up allocations. Recipients must be ready to begin using the allocated resource within two weeks of receiving the award.
  • NSF CloudBank 2: Accelerating Science and Engineering Research in the Commercial Cloud. Expands the portfolio of NSF OAC-supported resources by providing access to a broad range of commercial cloud computing resources. NSF CloudBank 2 introduces new capabilities, including advanced accelerators and quantum computing platforms and will be accessible to researchers through the NSF Advanced CyberInfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services and Support program. 
  • NVIDIA Workshop — Building LLM Applications with Prompt Engineering Wednesday, August 6 In this workshop, learners will work with an NVIDIA language model NIM, powered by the open-source Llama-3.1 large language model, alongside the popular LangChain library. The workshop will provide a foundational skill set for building a range of LLM-based applications using prompt engineering.
  • Open on Demand Tips and Tricks Call August 7 1PM ET Monthly community-hosted call to learn practical tips for using this powerful, web-based platform that gives you seamless access to HPC resources—no software needed.
  • Sage Office Hours August 7, 12, 24, 21 Join informative Office Hours via Zoom to learn more about Sage. Whether you’re new to Sage or an experienced user, these sessions can help.
  • Noecortex Office Hours August 6, 13, 20 & 27 2PM ET Curious about how to harness the unique architecture of Neocortex, featuring two Cerebras CS systems and an HPE Superdome Flex server? Neocortex Office Hours provide a space to connect with experts and unlock the full potential of this AI supercomputer hosted at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
  • NCSA Open Hackathon August 12-21 Together with NVIDIA and OpenACC organization, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) will host a virtual Open Hackathon starting August 12 and concluding August 21.
  • ACCESS and NAIRR Pilot Office Hours August 12 & 27 Office Hours are hosted by SCIPE Cyberinfrastructure Professionals (CIPs) and representatives from NSF’s ACCESS program, and are regularly attended by members of the NAIRR Pilot operations teams and Pilot partners. They are happy to answer questions related to proposal submission, active NAIRR Pilot awards, ACCESS MATCH submissions and ACCESS resource usage and support.
  • NAIRR Pilot Partner Series — Neocortex August 13 An exciting session on accelerating science with cutting edge AI hardware. Discover how the NSF-funded Neocortex project, powered by Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine AI accelerators, is impacting research across disciplines.
  • CU-RMACC Webinars: Should I be Scared of AI? August 18 Throughout history, new technologies have sparked both excitement and fear—AI is no different. In this talk, Dr. Shelley Knuth, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Computing at the University of Colorado explores the common fears surrounding artificial intelligence, why we feel them, and how we can shift our perspective to focus on positive outcomes.
  • COMPLECS: Batch Computing (Part II): Getting Started with Batch Job Scheduling August 21 In this second part of the series on Batch Computing, you’ll be introduced to the concept of a distributed batch job scheduler using the Slurm Workload Manager as a reference implementation and testbed.
  • Notre Dame AI Forum November 17-19 — Call for sumbmissions and registration now open. This intimate gathering of higher education IT leaders will focus on how organizations are approaching the opportunities and challenges posed by AI, grounded in an understanding of how the technology affects teaching and learning, research, and administration on college campuses. 

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through  Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) NSF award #2436057. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.