We already built one, the Oregon Regional Computing Accelerator. A full description at https://orca.pdx.edu, yes it runs Rocky 9 Linux. Free use if you have university credentials at any Oregon or southern Washington institution.
On Wed, Mar 18, 2026 at 2:47 PM Russell Senior <[email protected]> wrote: > > Who: Jesse Lopez > What: Inside AI Supercomputers: From GPUs to Multi-DC Clusters > Where: 1930 SW 4th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97201-5304, Room 86-01 > When: Thursday, April 2, 2026 at 7 PM > Why: The pursuit of technology freedom > > Summary: > > Large language models and other frontier AI systems are trained on > clusters with thousands to over a hundred thousand GPUs. But what does > that infrastructure actually look like? This talk walks through the > anatomy of an AI supercomputer from the ground up: individual GPUs, > multi-GPU nodes, racks, and full clusters. We'll cover the three pillars > of compute, storage, and networking, then look at how training and > inference workloads place very different demands on hardware. Finally, > we'll explore how Linux runs the show at every layer from the OS on each > node, to InfiniBand fabric management, to job scheduling with Slurm, > Kubernetes, and Ray. > No AI/HPC background required - just curiosity about what it takes to > build and run the machines behind the models. > > Bio: > > Jesse Lopez is an AI/ML and Technical Program Manager in the Azure > HPC/AI organization where he helps deploy large-scale AI infrastructure > and works with customers to put it to use. A former scientist, he has a > background in high-performance computing, AI/ML, and has been a Linux > user since the nineteen hundreds. > > Calagator: https://calagator.org/events/1250482513 > > With luck, the talk will also be streamed live here: > http://www.twitch.tv/kngbwlf, and later posted to YouTube. > > PLUG is back at Portland State University, thanks to the Computer > Science Department and to Andrew Greenberg. The room is in the basement > of the PSU Engineering Building (also connected underground to the > Fourth Avenue Building, or FAB). Enter through the Engineering Building. > The outside door will be locked, but there should be someone present at > the entrance to let you in starting at 6:40pm until 7pm. There will be a > sign on the door with a phone number you can SMS if there isn't someone > there to let you in immediately. > > -- > Russell Senior > PLUG Volunteer > [email protected] > >
