The second edition of the competition managed by the FCT's FCCN Unit aims to consolidate and strengthen the national technological and scientific system through Advanced Computing resources for Research and Innovation.
About a year after the first edition of Computing Projects Calls Avançada was announced in August 2020, the Foundation for Science and Technology, through its Unit FCCN, has revealed that it is opening applications for a second edition of the initiative. In this way, it will be possible for interested parties from various areas of knowledge and activity to apply for the award of 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 of the National Network for Advanced Computing (RNCA). Applications will be accepted in all scientific areas using High Performance Computing (HPC) and/or Scientific Cloud in three different categories: 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 13 September 2021. The two remaining accesses, A0 and A1, will be available on a rolling basis until 28 April 2022 or until the available resources are exhausted.
The competition is a collaboration between the four operational centers - the Minho Advanced Computing Centre (MACC), the University of Coimbra's Advanced Computing Laboratory (LCA-UC), the University of Évora's High Performance Computing (HPC-UÉ) and the National Distributed Computing Infrastructure (INCD). Its aim is to encourage the use of HPC and Scientific Cloud computing resources to obtain new knowledge that will enable scientific and technological progress in all areas 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 Unit FCCN approved 129 projectsand provided 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 competition and RNCA.
