The Cyberinfrastructure Program committee (CIP)  is made up of research computing directors.   This committee began as a community of practice, and over time evolved into an officially recognized GPN committee.  

The CIP makes recommendations to the EC for cyberinfrastructure, not including networking equipment.  The EC has final approval on all purchases.

Here are a few of the projects the CIP has done:

• Collaborated and submitted Several successful grants in the past, and is waiting to hear on another one in 2025.
• Instrumental in initializing and implementing the GPN Research Platform.
• GP-ARGO and GP-ENGINE node deployments

Members

• Kevin Brandt, Assistant Vice President for Research Cyberinfrastructure, South Dakota State University
• Ryan Johnson, Director of Research Computing, University of South Dakota
• Chad Julius, South Dakota State University
• Matthew Keeler Director of Research Computing Support Services, Division of IT
  University of Missouri, Columbia
• Chip Byers, MOREnet
• Kyle Gruhn, University of South Dakota
• Hoang Tran, Director of Research Computing at University of Kansas
• Riley Epperson, Kansas State University
• David Chaffin, University of Arkansas
• Henry Neeman, Assistant VP Information Technology – Research Strategy Advisor
  Director, OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research (OSCER)
  Associate Professor, Gallogly College of Engineering
  Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Computer Science, The University of Oklahoma
• Horst Severini, The University of Oklahoma
• Dr. Hongfeng Yu
  Director, Holland Computing Center
• James Morris, Ames laboratory
• Marina Kraeva, Iowa State University
• Ryan Doll, Wichita State University
• Lawrence Tarbox, University of Arkansas Medical Sciences
• Derek Weitzel,  Holland Computing Center
• Maureen Donlin, St. Louis University
• Michael Wallace, University of Arkansas Medical Sciences
• Jennifer Nixon, University of Missouri

CI Collaborations Around the Region

GPN-RP (Great Plains Network Research Network)

OneOCII

KanShare

ShowMeCI

HPC Around the Region

Location: University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
Website: https://docs.itrss.umsystem.edu/pub/hpc/hellbender
Who to contact with questions about this resources: itrss-support@umsystem.edu
Brief description of HPC Resources: Hellbender consists of 263 mixed x86-64 CPU nodes providing 24844 cores, 138 TB memory, 100Gb/s Infiniband interconnect on a 400Gb/s Infiniband backbone. 41 nodes are GPU nodes with a total of 132 GPU cards consisting of NVIDIA GPU’s including Volta, Ampere, and Hopper generations. Hellbender is attached to our Research Data Ecosystem (‘RDE’) that consists of 8.5PB of high performance and general purpose research storage. RDE can be accessible from other devices outside of Hellbender to create a single research data location across different computational environments.
Storage capacity and retention policies: We have 4 PB GPFS storage for cluster attached HPC loads, and 4PB VAST which can be cluster attached but intended for instrumentation loads. Both have snapshots, VAST with 7 dailys, 4 weeklys, and GPFS 10 dailys. Cluster storage is not backed up by default, but backing up to tape can be purchased.
Can others outside your institution access these HPC resources? Yes. Current external access includes external collaborators, CIMUSE/OSG grant funded partnership, and training/workshops.
How much, if any, percentage of HPC resources dedicated to shared networks? Hosting 9 x GPN Fiona nodes for NRP, 3 nodes for CIMUSE for OSG
HPC Workforce positions & responsibilities: 1 x Director IT, Leads Research IT including HPC, Non HPC, and Quantum
1 x Manager IT, Orchestrates HPC activities
1 x Business Technology Analyst, Performs orchestration activities
1 x Research Facilitator Lead, Leads research facilitation activities
2 x Research Facilitators, Performs research facilitation activities
1 x HPC Tech Lead, Leads HPC technical activities
2 x HPC System Administrator, Performs HPC technical activities
1 x Storage Administrator, Performs storage technical activities
Please describe the latest refresh/upgrade and if there are further upgrades planned: Hellbender (2022) was seeded with 112 CPU and 17 GPU nodes, with liquid cooling, rear door head exchangers, and two high performance storage platforms, with 96 CPU and 8 GPU nodes migrated from the old cluster Lewis. Hellbender Expansion (2025) consisted of 12 GPU nodes. Smaller additions in this time are 12 CPU nodes, 2 high memory CPU nodes and 4 x GPU nodes with H100/H200s.
We are currently in the middle of implementing a new tier 2 storage system.
What are sources of funding for HPC resources? Money from the University/Institution, Federal grants, Other
What other HPC related resources do you have on your campus that make you unique? The list of cores at Mizzou is at https://research.missouri.edu/cores-centers. The higher profile ones that I am aware of that utilize HPC resources are the Bioinformatics and Analytics Core, Electron Microscopy Core, Genomics Technology Core, MU Research Reactor, Cryo EM Core
Last Updated: July 2026

The Mill

Location: Missouri S&T, Rolla, MO
Website: https://itrss.mst.edu/cluster/mill/
Who to contact with questions about this resources: Tim Maninger, Technical Manager, tmaninger@mst.edu
Brief description of HPC Resources: CPU:15488c, GPU:26xV100+8xH100,
RAM:64TB, Network:IB100G
Storage capacity and retention policies: 50GB home dir for each user, 250TB Vast leasable per TB/yr, 2.4PB Ceph leasable per TB/yr
Can others outside your institution access these HPC resources? By request of internal collaborator, with account creation fee.
How much, if any, percentage of HPC resources dedicated to shared networks? We host one node for GP-ARGO
HPC Workforce positions & responsibilities: 3x HPC SysAdmins, 1x Research Facilitator, Hiring for Storage Admin
Please describe the latest refresh/upgrade and if there are further upgrades planned: Latest partial refresh 2023, much in use from 2019
What are sources of funding for HPC resources? Federal grants
Last Updated: July 2026

Lawrence & Spirit

Location: USD Main Campus, Vermillion, SD
Website: rcg.usd.edu
Who to contact with questions about these resources: Ryan Johnson, Director of Research Computing, Ryan.Johnson@usd.edu
Brief description of HPC Resources: 4,000 total CPU cores, 16 total NVIDIA GPUs (various models)
Storage capacity and retention policies: Local HPC storage: 1.3PB BeeGFS (Spirit); 140TB ZFS (Lawrence);
Bulk/longterm storage: South Dakota Data Store (Disk/Tape combination); Soon: GP-STOR Ceph storage (Procurement in progress; capacity TBD)
Can others outside your institution access these HPC resources? Yes; we are open to users from all educational institutions in South Dakota, as well as their collaborators.
How much, if any, percentage of HPC resources dedicated to shared networks? 20% of the Spirit cluster is dedicated to OSG. Lawrence capacity is available to OSG opportunistically. We also run 4 servers exclusively dedicated to running NRP jobs.
HPC Workforce positions & responsibilities: Director of Research Computing (1.0 FTE)
Research Computing and Data Application Specialist (1.0 FTE)
Gap: We are spread fairly thin. System Administration and Researcher Facilitation primarily handled by a single FTE.
Please describe the latest refresh/upgrade and if there are further upgrades planned: Lawrence: 2017, 2019, 2022
Spirit: 2025, 2026
No future upgrades planned at this time.
What are sources of funding for HPC resources? State funding, Corporate/foundation funders, Federal grants
Last Updated: July 2026

Libra

Location: Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO
Website: Not publically available
Who to contact with questions about these resources: Maureen Donlin, Director, Research Computing Group, maureen.donlin@health.slu.edu
Brief description of HPC Resources: 8 L40S GPUs (48 GB), 16 H100 NIVIDA GPUs (80 GB), 640 Intel Xeon Gold, 360 Intel Platinum CPU cores. Total RAM is 8.5 TB; 100 GB storage IO; 200 GB infiniband networking
Storage capacity and retention policies: 400 TB archive; 400 TB local NVME; 500 TB Lustre
Can others outside your institution access these HPC resources? Through OSG or as a research collaboration
How much, if any, percentage of HPC resources dedicated to shared networks? OSG 20% of compute purchased as part of NSF CC*
HPC Workforce positions & responsibilities: Administration and day-to-day management is contracted to Data in Science Technologies; Director of Research Computing Group – 20%; Director, Research Technologies – 5%; Research Technologists (2) 5% each; Systems Administrator 5%
Please describe the latest refresh/upgrade and if there are further upgrades planned: Libra (OS is RHEL 9.6) was installed in Fall of 2025; additional nodes have been added at varying intervals since then with quarterly patching. Lustre storage will be added in July, 2026. Additional resources will be added in Fall 2026 if funding from NSF MRI comes through.
What are sources of funding for HPC resources? Money from the University/Institution, Corporate/foundation funders, Federal grants, Donated equipment, Other
What other HPC related resources do you have on your campus that make you unique? Rebuilding an older cluster to function as an academic only HPC for class use
Last Updated: July 2026

Grace

Location: Univ. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR
Website: https://hpc.uams.edu
Who to contact with questions about these resources: Lawrence Tarbox, Director of HPC, LRTarbox@uams.edu
Brief description of HPC Resources: 11,776 CPU cores, 18 GPUs with 69,120 CUDA cores & 4,320 tensor cores, ~50 TB mem, 20 GB/s storage throughput, 100 Gbps interconnects.
Storage capacity and retention policies: 2 PB shared scratch & Home directory storage on the HPC, 6 PB bulk/longer term storage. Scratch can be recovered 2 weeks after job completion. Home is not recycled, but researchers are responsible for their own backups. Retention on long term storage is project specific. Typically long term is not deleted, but researchers are responsible for their own backups.
Can others outside your institution access these HPC resources? Any researcher in the State of Arkansas may request an account, no questions asked. Collaborators from anywhere who work with Arkansas researchers may also request an account.
How much, if any, percentage of HPC resources dedicated to shared networks? Since Grace was self-funded by UAMS, there is no requirement for sharing with networks. However, UAMS does host GP-ENGINE and formerly GP-ARGO nodes that do provide resources to NRP and OSG.
HPC Workforce positions & responsibilities: Director of HPC, 0.2 FTE; Senior System Administrator, 0.5 FTE. Yes, there are gaps. We could use (1) an additional Systems Administrator, and (2) a research computing facilitator to help researchers utilize HPC and scientific computing resources.
Please describe the latest refresh/upgrade and if there are further upgrades planned: Bulk of resources now 10 years old. 8x 64 core servers with 10 GPUs 3 years old. Looking for funding for refreshes/upgrades.
What are sources of funding for HPC resources? Money from the University/Institution, State funding, Federal grants
What other HPC related resources do you have on your campus that make you unique? Space available in a nearby tier 1 data center.
Last Updated: July 2026

Older information on regional HPC

Institute for Computational Research in Engineering and Science (Beocat)
Location: Kansas State University
Website: http://beocat.ksu.edu
Description: Currently 8K compute cores, 3PB storage.
Director: Dan Andresen
Contact Information: dan@ksu..edu
Policies: http://beocat.cis.ksu.edu/beocat/documentation/policy
Major Users: KSU Researchers, academic users across Kansas, and members of NSF funded initiatives.
Last Updated: September 13, 2019

Oklahoma State University High Performance Computing Center (OSUHPCC)
Location: Stillwater, Oklahoma
Website: http://hpcc.okstate.edu
Description: Resources include HPC systems, research cloud, bioinformatics collaboration, workshops, individualized support and configuration, and proposal development consultations.
Director: Pratul Agarwal
Contact Information: hpcc@okstate.edu
Policies: All OSU faculty, staff, students, and their collaborators plus any academic in the state, most resources available at no charge, buy-in encouraged for large consumers of resources.
Major Users: Researchers and educators at OSU and other Oklahoma institutions, and their collaborators elsewhere.
Last Updated: May 3, 2018

South Dakota State University Research Cyberinfrastructure (RCi)
Location: Brookings, SD
Website: https://www.sdstate.edu/division-technology-and-security/information-technology/research-cyberinfrastructure-rci
Description: RCi at SDSU provides access to HPC systems, storage and networking services to faculty, staff, students, and collaborators throughout the region. RCi also provides training, consultation, and general compute support for all users of our systems. More information available at https://www.sdstate.edu/division-technology-and-security/information-technology/cyberinfrastructure-resources
Director: Kevin Brandt
Contact Information: Kevin.Brandt@sdstate.edu
Major Users: SDSU Researchers, educators, and collaborators.

Arkansas High Performance Computing Center
Location:  Fayetteville, AR
Website: http://hpc.uark.edu
Description: HPC systems and cloud systems (667 nodes,  16,000 cores, 400 TF, 3PB storage), application support, and user interfaces.
Director: David Chaffin
Contact Information: ahpcc@uark.edu
Policies: http://hpc.uark.edu/hpc/assets/docs/HPC-User-Policy.pdf
Major Users: Researchers and Educators at the U of A and all Arkansas universities, and their collaborators.
Last Updated:  September 10, 2019