As research becomes increasingly data-driven and computationally intensive, access to high-performance computing (HPC) is more important than ever. Wichita State’s BeoShock HPC Buy-In Program offers a sustainable, scalable way for research groups to meet these growing demands.
What is HPC good for?
HPC is ideal for solving complex problems that require large-scale computing power, including:
- Scientific simulations (e.g., climate, fluid dynamics, particle physics)
- Big data analysis (e.g., genomics, cybersecurity, social science)
- Machine learning and AI model training
- Image and signal processing
- Engineering and economic modeling
How the Buy-In Program works
Research groups can purchase and contribute compute nodes to the BeoShock cluster. In return, they receive:
- Priority access to their hardware
- Faster job scheduling across the cluster
- Efficient use of idle time
BeoShock uses Slurm, a job scheduler that ensures fair access. If another user is running a job on your node, Slurm will pause and reschedule it so your group can use the resource. Idle time is shared to maximize efficiency.
Real impact: Physics and the DUNE Collaboration
In 2024, the Physics Division within the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics purchased a node with A30 GPUs to support graduate students working on the DUNE Collaboration, a major international experiment studying neutrinos. These students use BeoShock to simulate particle interactions and develop machine-learning models that will be used to detect neutrinos.
Support and sustainability
Participants benefit from:
- Secure, climate-controlled space with backup power
- High-speed networking and rack infrastructure
- System administration and maintenance
- Shared storage
- Support from two system administrators and one application scientist for workload optimization
Note: Licensed software is purchased by individual research groups.
Why it matters
The Buy-In Program is one way to ensure WSU maintains a local HPC system well into the future. Each new contribution advances the technology available to campus researchers and makes you a key stakeholder in the shared computing infrastructure.
It also helps keep the campus network secure by reducing the number of isolated, privately managed compute clusters — centralizing resources in a professionally maintained environment.
Before rebuilding a computer lab with high-end GPU cards, consider investing in BeoShock HPC.
Centralized infrastructure offers better scalability, lower maintenance overhead, stronger security and access to expert support — without sacrificing performance.
Want to explore first?
If you’re unsure what kind of computational resources your research needs, try out national systems through the NSF’s ACCESS program, which offers free trial access to a wide range of platforms at access-ci.org.
If your group is interested in participating or learning more, contact Terrance Figy, director of HPC and associate professor of physics, terrance.figy@wichita.edu.
