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GPU and cluster computing
This page lists the GPU and other compute clusters which are available to the School of Informatics.
Why use GPUs for computing? See the GPGPU Computing page. To learn how to do it right, see the GPU cluster tips page.
1. GPGPU desktops
Some computers in the Informatics student labs are equipped with GPUs for GPGPU computing. They're in room 9.02 of Appleton Tower. 9.02 is restricted to final year undergraduates until end of semester 2 when the MSc students are granted access. Look for the bigger computers with "This is a GPGPU desktop" on their login screens. You can test GPU code on these machines before running it for real on a GPU cluster. Currently these machines include:
| atlas:AT-9.02 | protea:AT-9.02 | |
| morgoth:AT-9.02 | springbokke:AT-9.02 | |
| russo:AT-9.02 | melkor:AT-9.02 | |
| starship:AT-9.02 | exodia:AT-9.02 | |
| waititi:AT-9.02 | ||
2. Informatics student clusters
We are currently in the process of merging a number of the clusters into one single cluster. This cluster has some general use nodes and dedicated Partitions (queues) for postgraduate researchers, staff and for the Machine Learning Practical course , but these can be used by others when they are not in use by their primary users. This cluster is a dedicated GPU cluster. If you do not automatically get access please submit an RT ticket.
The Charles cluster is for Data Science CDT students. It has GPUs.
3. Informatics-affiliated research units
The Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation has a CPU/GPU cluster. There is also specific provision in this cluster for CDT in NLP students
This cluster has been merged into the School's Research and Teaching Cluster. Access to the ILCC and CDT in NLP nodes is via dedicated partitions (queues) but sharing head nodes. There is some more documentation at the link below which can be read in conjunction with the Research Cluster documentation.
If you're in the ILCC or an NLP CDT student you should have access to the dedicated partitions automatically. If you have problems accessing the partitions then submit an RT ticket mentioning that you're an ILCC/CDT member.
The Centre for Speech Technology Research has GPU, multicore and large memory compute servers. The CSTR computer support page has details.
The Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour has a single node cluster with some GPUs it's reserved for people within IPAB
The Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute has a single node cluster with some GPUs it's reserved for people within AIAI
4. The University of Edinburgh
The Edinburgh International Data Facility (EIDF) maintains a cluster of 160 nvidia A100 GPUs which the school has priority access to. For more information and how to get access see Getting started on the EIDF Cluster
The Edinburgh Compute and Data Facility (ECDF / Eddie) has a large scale (10,000 + cores) Linux cluster, a multi-terabyte parallel filesystem and some GPGPU provision (Nvidia A100 80GB). It's free, or you can pay for priority access. For large scale HPC/HTC, ECDF should be your first choice.
Staff, visitors and research students get access automatically.
For information about access rights, please visit: Who can use Eddie.
Users with default access, so staff, PGRs and visitors are advised to use the Quickstart page at: Eddie Quickstart.
Undergraduate and Postgraduate taught students may get access, but only with the agreement of their supervisor, who should submit an online form at UG and PGT access form.
The Cloud Computing Service is currently (2023) one service: a Research Cloud (called "Eleanor") for academic staff and research students. Previously also an Enterprise Cloud (called "Grace") was available for anyone. At the moment information about Grace is not available. Each cloud has limited free access and a more extensive paid service.
The EPCC in the Bayes Centre has supercomputers and HPC clusters - the EPCC's HPC page has details. In particular, the EPCC hosts ARCHER2, the UK's premier academic research supercomputer, to which University of Edinburgh users have generous access, and CIRRUS, a UK Tier-2 national HPC facility with hundreds of CPU and GPU nodes and EIDF is a new GPU facility that's coming online which is related to the Data-Driven Innovation Programme.
- ⇒ High Performance Computing services at EPCC.
- ⇒ ARCHER2 national HPC service.
- ⇒ CIRRUS HPC facility.
5. HPC beyond Edinburgh
Time on an HPC facility is available via EPSRC calls. These can be queried on the UKRI website.