Who: Jesse Lopez
What: Inside AI Supercomputers: From GPUs to Multi-DC Clusters
Where: 1930 SW 4th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97201-5304, Room 86-01
When: Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 7 PM
Why: The pursuit of technology freedom
Summary:
Large language models and other frontier AI systems are trained on
clusters with thousands to over a hundred thousand GPUs. But what does
that infrastructure actually look like? This talk walks through the
anatomy of an AI supercomputer from the ground up: individual GPUs,
multi-GPU nodes, racks, and full clusters. We'll cover the three pillars
of compute, storage, and networking, then look at how training and
inference workloads place very different demands on hardware. Finally,
we'll explore how Linux runs the show at every layer from the OS on each
node, to InfiniBand fabric management, to job scheduling with Slurm,
Kubernetes, and Ray.
No AI/HPC background required - just curiosity about what it takes to
build and run the machines behind the models.
Bio:
Jesse Lopez is an AI/ML and Technical Program Manager in the Azure
HPC/AI organization where he helps deploy large-scale AI infrastructure
and works with customers to put it to use. A former scientist, he has a
background in high-performance computing, AI/ML, and has been a Linux
user since the nineteen hundreds.
Calagator: https://calagator.org/events/1250482598
With luck, the talk will also be streamed live here:
http://www.twitch.tv/kngbwlf, and later posted to YouTube.
PLUG is back at Portland State University, thanks to the Computer
Science Department and to Andrew Greenberg. The room is in the basement
of the PSU Engineering Building (also connected underground to the
Fourth Avenue Building, or FAB). Enter through the Engineering Building.
The outside door will be locked, but there should be someone present at
the entrance to let you in starting at 6:40pm until 7pm. There will be a
sign on the door with a phone number you can SMS if there isn't someone
there to let you in immediately.
--
Russell Senior
PLUG Volunteer
[email protected]
