Cultivating Multidisciplinary AI Workforce Development on iTiger GPU Cluster: Practices and Challenges

To support rapid AI advances and broaden access to large-scale computing resources for under-resourced institutions at the Mid-South, we established the first regional mid-scale GPU cluster at the University of Memphis (UofM), iTiger. We present and analyze efforts of infrastructure management and computational support for educators, students, and researchers across scientific and engineering disciplines, such as precision agriculture, smart transportation, and health informatics. We outline our initiatives to broaden cluster adoption on research and education, such as seed grant programs, workshop trainings, course integration, and other outreach activities. We also identify challenges and further discuss findings of GPU infrastructure adoptions among college students and multidisciplinary researchers. The insights will indicate how to effectively and broaden infrastructure adoption and integrate into research and workforce developments.