SmartSim 2024

September 26, 2024

Advancements in AI and AI accelerators are opening up a new avenue of research which combines data-driven techniques and scientific simulations. These hybrid applications often are more easily described by a loosely-coupled set of components (of which the simulation may be one) instead of a pipeline-like workflow common in traditional scientific computations. The ability to describe and execute these workflows along with the need to share data among the components can be a significant barrier to entry for domain scientists. HPE’s SmartSim is an open-source software library that seeks to address these challenges by providing an in-memory, distributed feature store for data storage and exchange, lightweight communication clients embeddable in C, C++, Fortran, and Python, and a Python library allowing users to compose complex workflows.

This workshop will showcase recent collaborations using SmartSim that are representative of emerging AI/HPC applications:

1. applying Bayesian optimization to an ensemble of simulations to tune the parameters of a turbulence model
2. on-the-fly training and inference to replace the mesh motion solver in OpenFOAM, a widely-used, open-source computational fluid dynamics solver and
3. intelligently sampling data streamed from a simulation to enable online-training at-scale for a high-resolution simulation of particle fluidization using MFIX-Exa, a Department of Energy, exascale-capable multiphase flow solver.

In addition to showcasing the capabilities, this presentation will also highlight the challenges and considerations unique to AI/HPC and how they compare to other common AI applications. Immediately following the presentations, interested users will have the opportunity to run a trimmed down version of the data-selection and online-training workflow and learn how to adapt it for their own simulation codes.

Specific examples of how to use SmartSim on Frontier (OLCF) and Perlmutter (NERSC) will be provided. This training is intended for current Frontier and Perlmutter users. Non-users are welcome to sign-up, attend the virtual presentations, and encouraged to download the public tutorials for themselves (see GitHub link below).

For more information about SmartSim prior to the training, please see:

• GitHub: https://github.com/CrayLabs
• Documentation: https://www.craylabs.org/docs/overview.html