About IOWarp
Our Mission
IOWarp exists at the intersection of a profound opportunity and an urgent challenge. Science generates more data than ever—175 zettabytes by 2025—yet AI systems remain fundamentally "data-starved." The paradox isn't about quantity. It's about context.
We're solving the gap between raw scientific data and AI-ready intelligence. IOWarp bridges this divide through context engineering: transforming scattered data, metadata, telemetry, and computational state into unified, actionable intelligence.
Why "CLIO"?
CLIO stands for Context Layer for IO — the infrastructure that transforms raw I/O into rich, actionable context for AI agents.
The name is a deliberate nod to Clio (Κλειώ), the Greek muse of history — daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory). In ancient mythology, Clio was "the proclaimer" who preserved, celebrated, and made knowledge accessible across time.
Our CLIO does the same for scientific data: it preserves provenance, maintains context across sessions and agents, and ensures that the history of every dataset — its origins, transformations, and meaning — is never lost. Where the muse carried scrolls, our framework carries context bundles. Where she celebrated great deeds, we enable great discoveries.
CLIO Core — The Four-Engine Architecture
CLIO Ingest — The Way In
CLIO Ingest ingests 50+ scientific formats, normalizes, enriches semantics, and delivers AI-ready context.
CLIO Transfer — The Mover
CLIO Transfer orchestrates context across GPU HBM, NVMe, parallel FS, and tape with ML-based prediction.
CLIO Explore — The Finder
CLIO Explore enables natural language queries at petabyte scale.
CLIO Plugin — The Connector
CLIO Plugin integrates Slurm, Lustre, GPFS, S3, and scientific instruments.
Team & Partners
Led by Dr. Xian-He Sun (PI, IEEE Fellow), Dr. Anthony Kougkas (Co-PI), Dr. Jake Hochhalter and Dr. Vivek Srikumar (Co-PIs, University of Utah), Dr. Luke Logan (Head Engineer). 5 research staff, 10 PhD researchers, 50+ community contributors.
Collaborators: 5+ national labs and research centers including LLNL, ANL, NERSC, EarthScope, NDP, NVIDIA
NSF Funding
Award #2411318, $5M (2024-2029). Research foundation: 25+ publications (cumulative GRC research), 2 Best Paper Awards (cumulative GRC research), 1 US Patent (cumulative GRC research), $15M cumulative funding (cumulative GRC research).
