Below is a summary assembled by the Research & Innovation Office (RIO). Please see the full solicitation for complete information about the funding opportunity. This call is for Category I submissions; another internal call will be issued for the October 2025 Category II deadline.

Program Summary听

This solicitation continues the Advanced Computing Systems and Services (ACSS) program's emphasis on funding systems and services providing cyberinfrastructure (CI) for the Nation's Science & Engineering (S&E) research community.

The intent of this 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 focused on Category I, Capacity Resources: production computational resources maximizing the capacity provided to support the broad range of computation and data analytics needs in S&E research.

A successful proposal must clearly demonstrate how the proposed resource will support transformative discoveries in S&E and offer broad accessibility to users. This may be done through a combination of analytical models projecting the anticipated performance of the proposed resource, appropriate benchmark results, support for innovative user-friendly usage modes, and other compelling empirical evidence validating that the resource will be a valuable scientific instrument for S&E discovery.

Category I 鈥� 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鈥檚 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 鈥渓ong-tail science鈥� applications, as well as new classes of applications, such as artificial intelligence/machine learning/deep learning applications.

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鈥檚 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.

Deadlines

CU Internal Deadline: 11:59pm MT June 17, 2024

Sponsor Category 1 Deadline: 5:00pm MT October 29, 2024

Internal Application Requirements (all in PDF format)

  • Project Description (3 pages maximum): Please include the following: intellectual merit, broader impacts, resource specification, S&E application performance, resource reliability and usability, project management and risk mitigation, data infrastructure, security, and operations plan (see the full NSF for further details on these elements).
  • PI Curriculum Vitae
  • Budget Overview (up to 1 page): A basic budget outlining project costs is sufficient; detailed OCG budgets are not required.

To access the online application, visit:

Eligibility

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.

Limited Submission Guidelines

An organization may submit only one proposal but may be a subawardee on other proposals responding to this solicitation.

Award Information

1-3 Category I awards will be made at up to $10,000,000 per award. 1-4 Category II awards will be made at up to $5,000,000 per award.

Award Length: up to 5 years

Review Criteria

Reviewers will be asked to assess the adequacy of the descriptions provided in the required sections of the Project Description (these are described in Section V.A. Proposal Preparation Instructions above):

  • Resource Specification;
  • S&E Application Performance;
  • Resource Reliability and Usability;
  • Project Management and Risk Mitigation;
  • Data Infrastructure;
  • Security;
  • Operations Plan; and
  • Broader Impacts.

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