Ten Years of the HPC Ecosystems Project - Transforming HPC in Africa for the past decade

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)'s National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS) plays a pivotal role in advancing two key initiatives that focus on developing cyberinfrastructure across the African continent: the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Cyberinfrastructure Framework, and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Partner Countries Big Data initiative. Within NICIS these initiatives are managed through the HPC Ecosystems Project, which has two primary objectives: distributing entry level High Performance Computing (HPC) systems by repurposing decommissioned tier-1 HPC systems, and cultivating a skilled HPC workforce across Africa. The first deployment of HPC systems under the project occurred in 2013, using repurposed hardware from the Texas Advanced Computing Center's decommissioned Ranger HPC system. These systems were allocated to bolster research capabilities at local research institutes in South Africa and within partner countries of the SKA project across Africa. A decade later, at the close of 2023, the HPC Ecosystems Project has deployed 35 HPC systems in 11 countries and delivered more than 30 formal HPC training workshops to over 700 participants, surpassing 21000 total participation hours. There is an active and growing virtual community exceeding 230 HPC practitioners globally. This paper provides a high-level overview of the first ten years of the project's lifespan; outlining the various approaches towards establishing sustainable cyberinfrastructure and HPC workforces in Africa. Included is a reflection on the challenges experienced, lessons learned, and progress made towards delivering cyberinfrastructure resources and HPC training to resource-constrained environments.