Stronger Together: A Shared Cyberinfrastructure Strategy for North Dakota's Research Future

As advanced computing and artificial intelligence continue to reshape research, universities face rising infrastructure costs, increasing energy demands, and a challenging federal funding landscape. No single institution in North Dakota can sustainably meet these demands alone. This presentation explores how shared cyberinfrastructure models—such as regional supercomputing consortia—can help institutions pool resources, reduce costs, and strengthen research competitiveness. Attendees will learn about the economic forces shaping research computing today and a proposed vision for a statewide, shared supercomputing strategy that could support universities, tribal colleges, and research partners across North Dakota.

The session will be led by Dr. Christopher S. Simmons. Dr. Christopher S. Simmons has over 25 years of experience in computational science and high-performance computing education. He serves as Scientist-in-Residence at Cambridge Computer Services, where he focuses on advancing research cyberinfrastructure strategy and engaging with academic and research communities.

Dr. Simmons has held a series of leadership roles in research computing and cyberinfrastructure. Most recently, he served as Deputy Executive Director of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, a regional consortium facility supporting multiple research universities. He previously served as Director of Cyberinfrastructure at the University of Texas at Dallas, as Deputy Director for the Center for Predictive Engineering and Computational Sciences, and as research faculty with the Center for Computational Molecular Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.

An experienced educator, Dr. Simmons has been a lecturer in computational chemistry and computer science, and he developed the core curriculum for a graduate program in computational science at the University of Texas at Austin. He has an extensive record of publications in high-performance computing and computational science, and he serves as Project Lead for OpenHPC, the largest open-source ecosystem for building HPC systems. Dr. Simmons earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin, with an emphasis in computational quantum mechanics.