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In May the University of Sussex welcomed representatives from Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a special event organized by DISCnet and IT Research Services. This visit was part of DISCnet's doctoral training course in High-Performance Computing (HPC), designed to introduce postgraduate researchers and staff to the capabilities and opportunities of commercial cloud computing in research.

Chris from AWS began the session with an engaging overview of the company’s global infrastructure, highlighting AWS’s vast capabilities and role in enabling scalable, innovative research. He outlined AWS’s offerings across more than 250 services – including data storage, machine learning, analytics, and high-performance computing – demonstrating how commercial cloud platforms are increasingly essential tools for researchers across disciplines.

James, a Research Solutions Architect at AWS, followed with an in-depth look at AWS’s research-focused services and their practical academic applications. Later that afternoon, he led a hands-on workshop for DISCnet postgraduate researchers, guiding them through setting up and managing a compute cluster on AWS. This offered valuable real-world skills and insights into scalable research computing in the cloud.

Learning continued the next day, with Professor Mark Wilkinson from DiRAC, one of the UK’s national supercomputing services, presenting an insightful talk on the country's public HPC infrastructure. He explained how DiRAC supports world-leading scientific research by providing access to powerful, nationally funded computational resources that enable breakthroughs across a range of disciplines.

Together, these sessions offered participants a comprehensive view of the options available for data-intensive research, comparing the flexibility and accessibility of cloud-based platforms with the scale and performance of national supercomputers.

Special thanks go to Clare Gryce, Associate Director of Digital Research Services, Reese Wilkinson, Systems Engineer, and the ITS Research Platforms team for facilitating the visit and providing access to the Artemis HPC service as part of the doctoral training programme.

DISCnet is an Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Centre for Doctoral Training dedicated to training the next generation of data-intensive scientists. A collaboration between the University of Sussex, Queen Mary University of London, and The Open University, DISCnet bridges academia and industry by building strong partnerships between postgraduate researchers and businesses.