Nanomaterials Commercialization Center Assistance Program
Introduction: PSC Corporate Affiliates Program
Through the Corporate Affiliates Program at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the same high performance computing power used to conduct award winning scientific research helps businesses solve their most challenging information-processing problems. For over two decades, PSC has been among the world's leading centers in developing and deploying the latest HPC technology. At PSC, making efficient and practical use of this technology has always been an important metric, and our users consistently praise the quality of PSC service and support.
According to the Council on Competitiveness, a Washington, D.C. organization of business, labor, academic and government leaders who focus on private sector competitiveness, HPC is a powerful enabler for increased innovation and productivity. We feel it is particularly applicable in the materials sector, and especially so for nanomaterials development.
NanoMaterials Commercialization Center Assistance Program
As an extension to the PSC Corporate Affiliates Program, PSC will provide access to its HPC resources to those emerging nanomaterials companies associated with the NanoMaterials Commercialization Center. Through this program PSC will provide, at no cost:
- Up to 5000 processor-hours on Warhol, a high performance computing resource dedicated to Pennsylvania users. Warhol is a professionally managed 64 core cluster. If Warhol is not an appropriate architecture for the desired application, time will be provided on another PSC system.
- Technical support to install appropriate codes, get the application running and consult as required.
Each company involved would be required to sign the PSC Corporate Affiliates Program agreement, which is intended to formalize the activities between the participating company and PSC. Access to PSC resources, including computer time and programming assistance, beyond the initial starter grant of up to 5000 processor-hours will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. In addition, awardees will be expected to provide a summary of the benefits they received from access to PSC resources.
Intellectual Property Rights
Note that PSC does not generally assert ownership rights to Intellectual Property (IP) that may be created under the agreement, provided that PSC only makes available computer time and standard user support. In such cases, all IP would be solely owned by the company who created it. However, if PSC personnel contribute to the creation of IP by (for example) making improvements to algorithms, designing new software, etc. then Carnegie Mellon University IP policies could come into play. In such cases, any IP that is created jointly between a company and PSC would be jointly owned by both parties.