Access to the supercomputers

Access for large-scale Projects

1. European resources (PRACE; called Tier-0) 

The computer systems (called Tier-0 systems) that are accessible through PRACE are provided by 5 PRACE hosting members* (HM). These resources are open to all researchers in all research areas in a competitive manner. Applications will underlie the peer review process of PRACE.
Calls are announced on the following website:
*PRACE HMs are committed to fund and deliver large PRACE RI computing and data management resources. Currently, there are five HMs: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Contributing general partners are other countries that do not contribute hardware resources but e.g. support. All 27 EU member states are members of PRACE.

2. National resources (called Tier-1)

In general, PIs being citizen of the country that offers resources can apply. Applications are under the national peer review rules.
Some countries accept large-scale applications PIs from foreign countries:
  • Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JUELICH) will consider those applications to a certain extent. They will be subject to the transparent scientific peer review under the John von Neumann Institute for Computing. There is no restriction applied for Co-PIs and collaborators.
  • The national resources provided by the User Lab at Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) are open to all scientists, irrespective of their nationality, provided the projects comply with US Export Control. These resources are subject to a competitive allocation process with transparent peer review.
  • For national calls at BSC it is recommended but not mandatory to have a Spanish collaborator in the project.
  • The national calls in Italy are open to PIs affiliated to an Italian institution, while no restriction is applied for the Co-PI and collaborators. The Italian resources are provided subject to a competitive allocation process with transparent peer review. However, Cineca additionally provides moderate amounts of computing time to HBP scientists.

The following national calls are available for the systems integrated into the HPAC Platform:

3. Future HBP assigned resources

In Europe, PRACE is acknowledged as the European HPC infrastructure by the European Commission and all 27 member countries of PRACE. Funding HBP supercomputing resources, the EC expects all large-scale allocations to be provided through PRACE. Therefore, future HBP resources provided by the EC will undergo the PRACE peer review. The full amount of these resources is foreseen to be provided to the HBP.

Preparatory and Development Projects

Furthermore, the members of the HPAC Platform, BSC, CINECA, CSCS and JSC are providing preparatory and development access. The former typically are intended to prepare larger allocation projects and range from 5,000 to 100,000 core hours, depending on the systems. Development projects serve major algorithm and code development purposes. Preparatory and development allocation requests are handled locally by these sites and typically require only technical reviews. The size of development projects at CSCS can be as large as one million core hours.