Webinar: Maximizing Cloud Value for Science: Navigating AI and HPC Innovations, Cloud Competition and Strategic Negotiation, featuring Jarek Nabrzyski

This webinar originally aired on May 5, 2025.

NSF CI Compass webinar "Maximizing Cloud Value for Science: Navigating AI and HPC Innovations, Cloud Competition, and Strategic Negotiation," featured Jarek Nabrzyski, CI Compass co-PI and director of the Center for Research Computing at the University of Notre Dame.

Abstract: Cloud computing has rapidly matured into a powerful platform for scientific research, offering capabilities that now rival traditional HPC centers. Major providers like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud deliver specialized AI hardware, advanced data analytics, and high-performance networking – all of which are reshaping how science is done at scale. At the same time, NSF-supported academic cloud efforts such as PATh, JetStream, and CloudBank continue to serve as vital resources for the research community.

This webinar focuses on the evolving capabilities of commercial cloud providers and their growing relevance to AI, data-intensive science, and even HPC workloads. The talk will examine how vendor roadmaps, strategic research partnerships, and incentive programs influence the services available to science users. The talk will touch upon negotiating effectively with cloud providers, including leveraging competition, managing vendor lock-in risks, and aligning contracts with the specific needs of large-scale research projects. This CI Compass webinar is designed to help facility directors, project leads, and technical staff make informed, strategic decisions in today’s hybrid cloud landscape.

About the speaker: Jarek Nabrzyski is a co-PI of NSF CI Compass, and director of the Center for Research Computing at the University of Notre Dame. He is an expert in cyberinfrastructure development.

Nabrzyski has collaborated with a broad range of scientific communities, such as astrophysics, polar and environmental sciences, physics, biomedical sciences, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities. He has experience in evaluating third-party infrastructures and has been involved in testing and evaluation activities for IARPA programs. Led by Nabrzyski, the Center for Research Computing (CRC) is a team of 55 social scientists and experts in cyberinfrastructure development, software engineering, DLC management, and embedded systems and IoT. Nabrzyski was a co-PI on the NSF-funded EarthCube Polar-Cyberinfrastructure RCN.