Building Capacity at the Foundation: ACE Uganda Launches HPC Training Initiative for HIV Research

The African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data Intensive Sciences (ACE Uganda) has announced the launch of an ambitious capacity-building program that underscores a fundamental truth about advancing science in Africa: sustainable progress requires local expertise. The HPC for HIV Project represents a strategic investment in training high-performance computing (HPC) systems administrators at both ACE Uganda and the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI)—two institutions at the forefront of Uganda’s response to the HIV epidemic and broader public health challenges.

This specialized training program, set to take place at the world-renowned Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin, will be conducted under the expert guidance of Dr. James Carson, who leads TACC’s Life Sciences Computing directorate, and Dr. Jennifer Schopf, TACC’s Director of Networking Partnerships. The initiative reflects a growing recognition that Africa’s scientific future depends not just on access to computational resources, but on cultivating the technical expertise needed to optimize and sustain these powerful research tools.

Why HPC Capacity Building Matters for HIV Research

High-performance computing has become indispensable in modern HIV research. From analyzing massive genomic datasets to modeling viral evolution and drug resistance patterns, from predicting epidemic trajectories to designing novel therapeutic interventions, HPC infrastructure enables researchers to ask—and answer—questions that would have been impossible just a decade ago.

Uganda has been at the epicenter of HIV research since the virus was first identified in the country in the 1980s. UVRI, established in 1936 by the Rockefeller Foundation and one of Africa’s oldest and most distinguished medical research institutions, has played a pivotal role in HIV surveillance, diagnostics, and vaccine research. The institute serves as Uganda’s national HIV reference laboratory and hosts critical partnerships with institutions including the Medical Research Council UK, Columbia University, and Johns Hopkins University.

ACE Uganda, meanwhile, has emerged as East Africa’s premier center for bioinformatics and computational biology, providing essential computational infrastructure and expertise to researchers across the region. The center’s HPC cluster has become a vital resource for scientists working on HIV genomics, drug resistance surveillance, and epidemiological modeling.

However, having powerful computers is only half the equation. The true value of HPC infrastructure lies in how effectively it can be deployed, maintained, and optimized to serve researchers’ evolving needs. This is where systems administrators become critical—they are the bridge between computational capacity and scientific discovery, ensuring that researchers can focus on their science rather than wrestling with technical obstacles.

The Training Program: Learning from World Leaders

The decision to conduct this training at TACC reflects ACE Uganda’s commitment to providing its staff with world-class preparation. Founded in 2001, TACC has grown from a staff of 15 and a single mid-level supercomputer to more than 150 staff members managing some of the world’s most powerful computing systems, including the Frontera supercomputer and advanced resources like Stampede2, Lonestar6, and specialized systems for data analysis and visualization.

TACC’s mission—to enable discoveries that advance science and society through the application of advanced computing technologies—aligns perfectly with the goals of the HPC for HIV Project. The center has extensive experience supporting life sciences research and has developed best practices for managing complex computational workflows, optimizing resource allocation, and providing responsive user support.

Dr. James Carson brings exceptional qualifications to lead this training initiative. With a Ph.D. in Structural and Computational Biology & Molecular Biophysics from Baylor College of Medicine and multidisciplinary training spanning engineering, computer science, biology, and medicine from Rice University and Baylor, Carson joined TACC in 2013 after working at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. At TACC, he directs the Life Sciences Computing directorate, focusing on strengthening the interactions between high-performance computing and life science research—precisely the intersection where HIV computational research operates.

Dr. Jennifer Schopf complements Carson’s expertise with her focus on the networking and data movement infrastructure that underpins modern scientific computing. As TACC’s Director of Networking Partnerships, Schopf brings extensive experience from her nine years directing the International Networks program at Indiana University, where she doubled the program’s funding and significantly expanded its reach to include major work in Africa—experience directly relevant to supporting researchers in Uganda and across the continent.

Building Local Capacity: A Strategic Imperative

The HPC for HIV Project addresses a critical gap in Africa’s scientific infrastructure: the need for locally-trained experts who can manage, optimize, and innovate with advanced computing systems. While many African institutions have invested in purchasing HPC equipment, the full potential of these resources often goes unrealized due to limited local expertise in systems administration, performance tuning, and user support.

This skills gap has real consequences for scientific productivity. Poorly configured systems waste computational resources and researcher time. Inadequate monitoring leads to undetected performance bottlenecks. Insufficient user support means researchers struggle with technical challenges that could be quickly resolved, diverting attention from their scientific work. In the context of HIV research—where timely analysis of emerging drug resistance patterns or rapid modeling of intervention strategies can have immediate public health implications—these inefficiencies are not just frustrating; they can delay critical insights.

By training systems administrators at both ACE Uganda and UVRI, this program creates a multiplier effect. These administrators will not only optimize their own institutions’ resources but will also be positioned to share knowledge across Uganda’s research community, mentor junior technical staff, and contribute to regional conversations about best practices in scientific computing infrastructure.

The training will cover essential competencies including:

System Architecture and Performance: Understanding HPC hardware configurations, job scheduling systems (particularly Slurm, which is widely used across African HPC centers), storage architectures, and network configurations. Participants will learn how to diagnose performance issues, optimize system configurations, and plan for capacity upgrades.

User Support and Training: Developing effective strategies for supporting diverse research communities, from creating clear documentation to providing responsive technical assistance. This includes understanding the specific computational needs of HIV researchers—from genomic analysis pipelines to epidemiological modeling workflows.

Resource Monitoring and Optimization: Implementing comprehensive monitoring systems to track resource utilization, identify bottlenecks, and ensure fair allocation among research groups. This also includes strategies for energy efficiency—a critical consideration for institutions managing operational costs.

Security and Data Management: Ensuring robust security practices for systems handling sensitive health research data, implementing appropriate access controls, and developing disaster recovery procedures.

Emerging Technologies: Exposure to cutting-edge developments in HPC, including GPU computing, containerization technologies, cloud-hybrid architectures, and AI/ML acceleration—all increasingly relevant to modern HIV research.

Supporting HIV Research Through Better Infrastructure

The ultimate beneficiaries of this capacity-building initiative are the HIV researchers whose work depends on reliable, high-performance computational infrastructure. UVRI’s HIV research portfolio spans fundamental virology, epidemiology, clinical trials, and vaccine development. The institute serves as Uganda’s national HIV reference laboratory and plays a central role in HIV drug resistance surveillance—work that generates massive datasets requiring sophisticated computational analysis.

Similarly, ACE Uganda supports a growing community of bioinformaticians and computational biologists working on HIV-related projects across East Africa. The center’s infrastructure enables research on viral genomics, protein structure prediction for drug design, phylogenetic analysis to track HIV transmission networks, and population-level modeling to inform public health interventions.

Well-trained systems administrators ensure that researchers at both institutions can:

• Run complex genomic analyses efficiently, processing hundreds or thousands of viral sequences to identify emerging resistance mutations
• Utilize advanced modeling tools to simulate epidemic dynamics under different intervention scenarios
• Collaborate effectively with international partners by facilitating seamless data sharing and joint computational projects
• Prototype and deploy new analytical approaches, experimenting with emerging methods in machine learning and AI for predictive modeling
• Train the next generation of computational scientists, providing stable, well-documented systems for students and early-career researchers

A Model for Sustainable Scientific Development

The HPC for HIV Project exemplifies a sustainable approach to building African scientific capacity. Rather than relying indefinitely on external technical expertise or purchasing equipment without developing local capabilities to maintain it, this initiative invests in people—creating lasting human capacity that will continue to generate value long after the initial training concludes.

This approach aligns with broader conversations about decolonizing science and technology development in Africa. For too long, African institutions have been consumers rather than co-creators of scientific infrastructure. Programs like this one begin to shift that dynamic, ensuring that African scientists and technical staff are not just users of HPC systems but experts in their deployment, optimization, and future development.

The partnership between ACE Uganda, UVRI, and TACC also models effective North-South collaboration. Rather than a one-way transfer of knowledge, this relationship recognizes that TACC can benefit from understanding the specific challenges and innovations emerging from African research contexts, while ACE and UVRI gain from TACC’s deep technical expertise and operational experience.

Looking Forward

The launch of the HPC for HIV Project comes at a pivotal moment for HIV research in Africa. With new opportunities emerging in areas like long-acting antiretroviral therapies, broadly neutralizing antibodies, and potential curative strategies, the computational demands on research institutions are only growing. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated both the critical importance of robust health research infrastructure and the need for local capacity to respond rapidly to emerging health threats.

By investing in HPC capacity building now, ACE Uganda and UVRI are positioning themselves not just to support current HIV research needs, but to be ready for whatever computational challenges the future brings—whether that’s analyzing data from large-scale HIV vaccine trials, contributing to pan-African genomic surveillance networks, or rapidly modeling responses to new viral threats.

The trained systems administrators emerging from this program will form the technical backbone supporting the next generation of discoveries in HIV research and beyond. Their expertise will enable researchers to ask bolder questions, analyze data more comprehensively, and collaborate more effectively across institutions and continents.

In the fight against HIV—a disease that has profoundly shaped Uganda’s history and continues to affect millions across the continent—every advantage matters. High-performance computing, expertly managed and thoughtfully deployed, provides researchers with a powerful tool for understanding the virus, developing new interventions, and ultimately working toward the epidemic’s end.

The HPC for HIV Project recognizes that sophisticated technology alone cannot solve complex scientific challenges. Success requires the convergence of advanced tools and expert hands to wield them. By building local capacity in HPC systems administration, ACE Uganda and UVRI are making a strategic investment in Africa’s scientific future—one that will pay dividends in scientific discoveries, public health impact, and the continued development of a robust, self-sufficient African research ecosystem.

As these newly trained administrators return from TACC to their home institutions, they will bring more than technical skills. They will bring a deeper understanding of what is possible when computational infrastructure is optimized for scientific discovery, a network of international colleagues and collaborators, and the confidence that comes from training with world leaders in their field. Most importantly, they will bring the knowledge and expertise needed to ensure that African researchers have the computational support they need to make the discoveries that will advance science and improve lives across the continent.