Contributed by Joe Greenseid, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft Azure HPC/AI and HPSF Governing Board Member
At SC25 a few weeks ago, I was asked repeated variations of the questions: “Why did Microsoft join HPSF?” and “How has it been since you joined?” These weren’t just polite small talk. People genuinely wanted to know what our experience has been like, and why a company as large as Microsoft would join a foundation like HPSF, especially since we aren’t leading any software projects within it.
Let me share two examples from the past three months that illustrate why joining has been worthwhile.
- First, a new project petitioned to join HPSF. As part of the process, the project presented to the TAC, where several Microsoft team members regularly join the bi-weekly calls. After the presentation, I asked one of our software developers what he thought. The project interacts with multiple cloud platforms, and the developer wanted to see how they were working with Azure. He reached out to provide advice on best practices, or help the project optimize their approach if needed.
- The second example came from another member organization. They support an HPC RSE organization and were curious about GitHub Copilot, particularly how it works with HPC programming models like MPI, OpenMP, and CUDA. They hadn’t found much documentation and reached out to me for guidance. I connected them with one of our senior application engineers who focuses on benchmarking and performance analysis. He was able to answer questions via email, and eventually they invited him to present at their monthly symposium and even collaborate on a workshop for ISC.
Microsoft is a very large company, and it’s made up of people who want to do meaningful work. We want our products, like Azure and GitHub Copilot, to help people succeed, and being part of HPSF gives us the chance to engage with a community that cares deeply about HPC. In turn, the HPSF community has been welcoming and proactive in engaging with us.
Three months in, I can say without hesitation that I am proud Microsoft joined HPSF. I’m already seeing many members of our HPC and AI team actively engaging with the community, learning from it, and contributing back.