Allocation and Affiliation Information
PSC welcomes resource requests for allocations of supercomputing time from qualified scientists, engineers, and science educators, and strongly encourages women, minorities, and persons with disabilities to participate fully in its research and research-related programs.
The policies documented here are evaluated regularly to assure adequate and responsible administration of PSC systems for users. As such, they are subject to change at any time.
Proprietary research
Users conducting proprietary research who are interested in using PSC systems can do so by requesting affiliation through the center’s Corporate Affiliates Program.
Non-proprietary research
Funding from the NSF and the NIH enables PSC to provide allocations of free supercomputing time to researchers and educators affiliated with academic and non-profit research institutions in the United States. Projects must be non-proprietary and awardees are wholly responsible for conducting their research project activities and preparing results for publication.
To apply, you must be a researcher or educator at a US academic or non-profit research institution. A principal investigator (PI) may not be a high school, undergraduate, or graduate student; a qualified advisor must serve in this capacity. Postdocs are eligible to serve as PI.
NSF ACCESS program
Researchers or educators affiliated with academic or non-profit research institutions in the United States may apply to use PSC resources through the NSF’s ACCESS program.
Bridges-2 is allocated through the ACCESS program. For specifics on how to apply for a grant of time, visit the ACCESS Allocations page.
For information about Neocortex access for the NSF’s National Artificial Intelligence Resarch Resource (NAIRR) program, please see the NAIRR website.
Biomedical research
PSC’s Biomedical Applications group supports biomedical research, including on Bridges-2 and Anton 2, and in the HuBMAP, Brain Image Library, and SenNet projects.
Anton 2, a special purpose supercomputer for biomolecular simulation designed and constructed by D. E. Shaw Research, is allocated annually via a Request for Proposal with proposals reviewed by a committee convened by the National Research Council at the National Academies. See the Anton 2 documentation for details.
The Brain Image Library (BIL) is a public resource allowing researchers to deposit, analyze, mine, share, and interact with large brain image datasets. See the BIL website for information on how to access BIL data and the BIL Analysis Ecosystem, and how to submit data to BIL.
HuBMAP and SenNet provide publicly accessible atlases of healthy and senescent human cells, respectively. See the HuBMAP website or the SenNet website for information on using these resources.
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Coursework grants
A primary mission of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is to train students, including undergraduates, in high performance computing. To this end, PSC offers Coursework allocations which are grants of free supercomputing time to supplement other teaching tools.
More information on how to apply for coursework grants will be coming soon.