Purdue University

A Purdue-connected software company used the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing (RCAC)’s Weber computing cluster to develop a tool that resulted in a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which contracts, purchases, distributes, stores and disposes of items for the Department of Defense.

The company, Quantum Research Sciences, developed its Product Obsolescence Prediction tool to help the US Air Force with inventory management. The Air Force has many pieces of equipment, all of which have many parts to keep track of with multiple vendors and distribution centers. Figuring out how to manage repair and replacement of all these parts is a very complicated problem that can’t be solved with classical computing resources.

The QRS team is able to use RCAC’s specialty Weber cluster to develop and train machine learning algorithms. Output from the Weber cluster is capable of improving inventory management technology. Another DoD project in Jung’s research group also utilizes the Weber cluster, then fed the output into a quantum computer to get answers back on the best procurement and inventory management strategy.

Weber, which was deployed in 2019, is unique among RCAC’s clusters and was built for situations like this involving data, applications, and research under export control regulations such as EAR, ITAR, or requiring compliance with the NIST SP 800-171.

“This and other projects wouldn’t have been possible without Weber,” says Andreas Jung, associate professor of physics and astronomy and the chief operating officer of QRS.

“It’s great that Purdue has this resource available for researchers’ use.”

The data Jung and his QRS colleagues were working with is known as “controlled unclassified information,” meaning data that isn’t classified by the government but is subject to special restrictions and regulations. Regular GPU and CPU clusters aren’t suitable for this type of data, but Weber, named after Purdue alumna and astronaut Mary Ellen Weber, was designed specifically for this purpose.

Quantum Research Sciences (QRS) is an American technology company focused on the discovery, development and delivery of practical quantum software. QRS created the DOD’s first operational quantum software and is working toward new quantum software applications every day. For more information on QRS, visit https://quantumresearchsciences.com/.

To learn more about Weber and other Research Computing resources, contact rcac-help@purdue.edu.