FCCN, the digital services of the Foundation for Science and Technology, launches the 5th Advanced Computing Projects Competition (CPCA), which aims to provide computing resources for national scientific innovation projects, promoting research in areas of high impact and relevance.
In addition to applications for access to A0 and A1, which run until September 2025, this edition brings new features for access to A2 and A3, with two application periods: the first until October 10, 2024, and a second phase in 2025. The first phase, exclusively through the "fast track," is intended for projects that have been previously evaluated in previous competitions. More details and criteria for the "fast track" and "full track" can be found in notice of opening of the competition.
Applications are accepted in all scientific areas
More than 560 million CPU core hours are up for grabs, and applications will be accepted in all scientific areas using High Performance Computing. (High Performance Computing – HPC), Computing for Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Computing in Cloud Scientific.
This edition of CPCA provides access to three important high-performance computing platforms: the MareNostrum 5, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, and the Deucalion, a state-of-the-art Portuguese supercomputer, both funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and that allow greater scalability and performance in various areas of research and innovation. Researchers can also use HPC and Cloud services from INCD (National Distributed Computing Infrastructure), ideal for projects with flexible storage and computing needs.
The competition is open to all researchers from national institutions, public or private, who wish to submit applications for access to computing resources under different access types:
- A0 – Experimental access: Aimed at users with no prior experience or for small-scale projects, up to 6 months.
- A1 – Access to development: For medium-scale projects with more complex computing needs, up to 12 months.
- A2 – Regular access: Large-scale projects for experienced HPC, AI, or Cloud users over 12 months.
- A3 – Larger access: Large-scale projects, with high consumption of computational resources and requiring infrastructures such as Deucalion or MareNostrum 5, for 12 months.
Online information session
To support the candidates, a first online clarification session on September 24th at 12:00 pm. Interested parties can register via the link: Clarification session via Colibri-Zoom.
For more information, we suggest visit the information available on the FCT website and consult the page of open competitions.
Applications must be submitted at myFCT Platform. The results will be published after approval by the FCT, after the end of each submission period.
