White Papers

Developing a Roadmap towards the Next Generation of Smart Cyberinfrastructure
February 25-27, 2020, Hyatt Regency Crystal City, VA,
Call for White Papers

This NSF workshop (http://smartci2020.org/) aims to develop an understanding of the state of the art and the view of research needs in using scientific cyberinfrastructure powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and other smart technologies, as well as using these smart technologies to manage cyberinfrastructure efficiently, with emphasis on NSF-supported cyberinfrastructure. The scale and priority of both research activities and opportunities that build on smart technologies call for the urgent coherent development of smart cyberinfrastructures that enables accelerated progress, shared outcomes, high-quality workforce training, and operational excellence. Moreover, the shared research vision should allow the identification of the most crucial gaps in existing capabilities that are least likely to be filled by industry, existing efforts by NSF, or other agencies.

The expected outcomes of this workshop include a cohesive overview of the state of the art in AI, ML, and other smart technologies in the context of several cyberinfrastructure focus areas, including:

Accelerate AI/ML algorithms on NSF-supported cyberinfrastructure
Efficient use NSF-supported cyberinfrastructure through AI/ML technologies
Provide easy and productive access to AI/ML tools by a broader and diverse scientific community of domestic and international stakeholders
Explore and assess cyberinfrastructure requirements for AI/ML-based scientific applications

To achieve the above-stated goals and outcomes, this workshop will include plenary presentations, panel discussions, breakout sessions, and lightning talks from contributed whitepapers. Accordingly, we invite you to submit short whitepapers (one- or two-page papers) that address one or more of the topics listed above. The whitepapers should provide your long-term vision and recommendations addressing key aspects that enable the development of a smart cyberinfrastructure, including among others the following issues:

What are the main open research challenges and/or promising research directions in AI/ML and other smart technologies that can positively impact future NSF-supported cyberinfrastructure?
What computational testbeds for community research can accelerate innovation and lead to future deployments?
What innovations are needed in the cyberinfrastructure of the future?
How can the community promote and implement workforce development and training to facilitate the support of cyberinfrastructure?
What tools and techniques are needed to support cyberinfrastructure-enabled science and engineering?

The topics and questions listed here above are not meant to be comprehensive nor we expect each white paper to touch all of them. Within the scope of the workshop, you should feel free to develop specific topics and sub-topics as well as formulate your own questions. Good ideas about potential lines of important research, emerging new types of relevant technology, or discussions of notable technology gaps are welcome. Putting such ideas in the context of your own experience, or the experience of your research community is especially valuable. We will select as many white papers as possible for short (4-5 slide; no more than 10 min each) presentations by their authors as lightning talks. The whitepapers can be published as part of the workshop report. The final workshop report will be used to share findings and recommendations with NSF, the scientific communities, and the public.

For full consideration for workshop presentations, send your contributions to Valerio Pascucci (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by February 15. We are looking forward to seeing you in at the workshop.