Introducing high performance computing (HPC) concepts in institutions with an absence of HPC culture

A large percentage of colleges and universities in the world do not have a HPC culture existing on campus, where access to supercomputing resources (hardware) or supercomputing personnel (faculty and technical staff) and the need to work on grand challenge applications (GCA) is considerably absent. Incorporating courses related to HPC in such institutions presents multiple challenges - non-availability of HPC resources, academic staff trained in HPC related areas, inertia faced in changing the curriculum, absence of a tangible local industry, paucity of funds, lack of enthusiasm among academicians and perceived ignorance. This paper presents a classification of institutions based on three HPC related criteria and highlights the challenges faced in introducing HPC related courses into institutions that do not have a HPC culture. Experiences related to introducing HPC related topics in two institutions, PACE in India and KKU in Saudi Arabia, falling in two different regions in the classification, have been highlighted.