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UCCS Research Computing Cluster - ORCA

Information about ORCA

The University of Colorado Colorado Springs is proud to introduce its next-generation computational cluster-an advanced cyberinfrastructure designed to accelerate scientific discovery and support the university's growing research mission as a Carnegie-classified R2 institution.

 

About the Cluster

Research Computing

This new high-performance computing environment is a centralized, scalable, and cloud-like platform built on OpenStack and Kubernetes. It integrates GPU-accelerated nodes, multi-core CPUs, and high-speed NVMe storage to support a wide range of research workloads—from deep learning and genomics to quantum chemistry and fluid dynamics. It is UCCS new private research cloud.

 

Key Features

  1. 10 compute nodes with 32 cores and 1.1TB RAM each total of 1.3Thz of computation
  2. 2 x 2GPU nodes with NVIDIA L40 GPUs and 1.1TB RAM each
  3. 42TB NVMe storage with high-speed 25Gbps interconnects
  4. OpenStack-based cloud interface for self-service access
  5. 20% resource allocation to the Open Science Grid (OSG) and additionally connected to the OSDF for collaboration

Research Impact

Student doing research

The cluster supports diverse research areas including:

  • Spin-wave dynamics in physics
  • Bat flight biomechanics using deep learning
  • Quantum mechanical modeling for drug discovery
  • Super-resolution brain imaging
  • Mobile hardware architecture for AI
  • Genomic structure prediction and bioinformatics
  • Computational fluid dynamics for biomedical applications

Broader Benefits

Promotes interdisciplinary collaboration across campus, Enhances workforce development through student employment and training, Advances diversity, equity, and inclusion in scientific computing, Enables global research through OSG integration