The second edition of the competition managed by the FCCN Unit of the FCT aims to consolidate and strengthen the national technological and scientific system through Advanced Computing resources for Research and Innovation.
About a year later, in August 2020, the first edition of the Advanced Computing Projects Competition was announced, the Foundation for Science and Technology, through its FCCN Unit, announced the opening of applications for a second edition of the initiative. This will allow interested parties from various fields of knowledge and activity to apply for Advanced Computing Projects and the provision of computing resources.
In total, the second edition of the competition aims to award 31 million CPU core hours or vCPU hours on platforms. National Advanced Computing Network (RNCA). Applications will be accepted in all scientific areas using High Performance Computing (HPC) and/or scientific Cloud in three distinct typologies: Experimental Access (A0), Preparatory Access (A1) and Project Access (A2). Each of these categories corresponds to a maximum number of hours of use and project duration.
Applications for Project Access – A2 – will be open until September 13, 2021. The two remaining accesses, A0 and A1, will be available on a continuous basis until April 28, 2022 or until available resources are exhausted.
The competition is a collaboration with the four operational centers – Minho Advanced Computing Centre (MACC), Advanced Computing Laboratory of the University of Coimbra (LCA-UC), High Performance Computing of the University of Évora (HPC-UÉ) and National Infrastructure for Distributed Computing (INCD)Its objective is to encourage the use of HPC and Scientific Cloud computing resources to obtain new knowledge that enables scientific and technological advancement in all fields of knowledge.
Some examples provided as cases where these resources will be useful concern areas as diverse as climate or molecular modeling, artificial intelligence and the study of complex problems in the creation of new materials or the improvement of industrial production lines. In the first edition of the competition, the FCCN Unit approved 129 projects, providing more than 35 million CPU core hours.
To find out more about the types of competition in the 2nd edition, and the application deadlines, visit the contest page and the RNCA.
