Website National Science Foundation
Summary
The intent of this NSF Advanced Computing Systems & Services solicitation is to request proposals from organizations who are willing to serve as resource providers within the NSF Advanced Computing Systems and Services (ACSS) program. Resource providers would (1) provide advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) resources in production operations to support the full range of computational- and data-intensive research across all of science and engineering (S&E), and (2) ensure democratized and equitable access to the proposed resources. The current solicitation is intended to complement previous NSF investments in advanced computational infrastructure by provisioning resources, broadly defined in this solicitation to include systems and/or services in:
Category I – Capacity Resources
Resources proposed in this category are intended to be operational deployments of production computational resources that will provide maximum capacity and throughput to support the broad range of computation and data analytics needs in S&E research. The deployments are expected to adhere to a vision of an advanced computing ecosystem as a federated set of resources and services that are heterogeneous in architecture, resource type, and usage mode to collectively meet the Nation’s foundational needs for world-leading computing capabilities.
The proposed resource must be clearly motivated by the current and future demand for computational and data analytics capacity in the broad and diverse S&E research community. This category particularly targets capabilities and/or services for small- to mid-scale jobs (from one to a few thousand cores per job) across broad areas of S&E, including support for “long-tail science” applications, as well as new classes of applications, such as artificial intelligence/machine learning/deep learning applications.
Proposers are encouraged to explore novel models for future dynamic national cyberinfrastructure federation (such as those enabled by the PATh facility), including in compute resources, software, data, technical expertise, stakeholders, on-demand allocations, and resource provisioning mechanisms. The latter mechanisms can govern regional and/or campus supported resources, and/or commercial cloud services, enabling comprehensive and effective science-based response to a potential future national and/or international urgent need; or be available to fuel AI research and development opening opportunities for the next breakthroughs in science, engineering, and technology.
Competitive proposals in Category I must address the following requirements in the Project Description:
- A clear plan for provisioning a resource that addresses the current and future demand for computation and data analytics capacity in the broad S&E computational research community;
- A forward-looking plan for engagement with other NSF supported efforts in advanced CI where possible, such as domain-specific centers housing software, sensors, or instrument data that will enable new advances in S&E research;
- A persuasive articulation as to how the resource will support less traditional and/or underrepresented computational S&E communities if appropriate and how models of engagement with campus-supported CI will be explored;
- A description of how the resource will support S&E research communities that require a national-scale, on-demand, compute and data-analytics resource with a flexible and user-friendly software environment;
- A clear plan of operations for the project duration with a clear set of operational and science impact metrics to ensure the resource will be an asset for the nation’s S&E research community;
- A detailed risk-mitigated deployment plan to ensure that the proposed resource will be in production operations and available for allocation to the open S&E research community no later than 12 months from the time of award; and
- A comprehensive set of system-level performance and reliability metrics that will be used by NSF for acceptance of the resource or service.
Relevant parameters contributing to the comprehensive technical description of the proposed system may vary with the nature of the resource. However, all description of the proposed resource must closely adhere to the guidelines provided in section V.A. Proposal Preparation Instructions.
UCI Internal Competition Guidelines
UCI may submit only one proposal, but may be a subawardee on other proposals responding to this solicitation. The restriction to no more than one submitted proposal as lead institution is to help ensure that there is appropriate institutional commitment necessary for responsible oversight, by the potential awardee institution, of a national resource.
An individual may be the PI or co-PI on no more than one proposal that responds to this solicitation. There is no limit on the number of proposals with which an individual may be associated in other capacities, such as senior personnel.
Interested applicants should (via the UCI Review application system) submit the following by Tuesday, August 6, 2024:
- 3-page project summary outlining the proposed plan to provide resources to support S&E research in accordance with the solicitation requirements.
- Brief CV (up to 3 pages) from the project PI, and from key Co-PIs
An ad hoc committee will then be convened to review the internal applications, and the selected candidates will be notified during the week of August 19, 2024 which will give candidates over 8 weeks to develop full proposals to meet the October 29, 2024 NSF deadline.
Questions about our internal campus review process may be directed to Director of Research Development, Mike Gallo at magallo@uci.edu .