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The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) supports Swiss scientist in all matters concerning supercomputing and scientific computing. Until October 14th 2011 new requests for compute time for large projects can be submitted. Users now also have access to supercomputers for their data analysis.

The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) is the High Performance Computing (HPC) partner for Swiss technical universities, universities and federal research entities. Its core mission is to provide scientists with the compute infrastructure they need. In this context, CSCS with its international team offers scientists important know-how and competent support in HPC, visualisation, the implementation of codes on the computers as well as with the continuous development and optimisation of codes and algorithms on new computer architectures.

Support in HPC

Thanks to close collaborations with the scientists, the CSCS team is familiar with the key issues of various disciplines in HPC. As the competence centre for supercomputing CSCS often brings together scientists that, independently from each other, are seeking solutions to similar problems. This often leads to research co-operations, such as those in the areas of astrophysics, climate materials research that CSCS actively supports in all matters HPC.

Thanks to its flexibility and innovation CSCS has gained a reputation amongst compute centres and hardware vendors worldwide, which has led to co-operations with other institutions and industry. This enables CSCS to influence hardware developments – based on the requirements of our users – and to develop new tools and methods, allowing CSCS to provide Swiss scientist with a competitive advantage in the worldwide competition.

Submission deadline 14^th October

Researchers in computational sciences can continuously submit short preparatory projects to CSCS. For large projects with a duration of up to three years, scientist can apply for compute time every 6 months. The current call for proposals closes on October 14^th 2011 and will see 250 million cpu hours allocated amongst Swiss institutions starting April 1^st 2012.

Thanks to the installation this summer of the Cray XMT and SGI UV users now have access to supercomputers for their data analysis and data structuring. Registered users can use their user name and password to download the application forms from the CSCS website from the beginning of October. Details about this and full information on who can apply for compute time and what this requires can be found at http://www.cscs.ch/nss/submission

Since May 2010 Production Project Proposals for CSCS can be submitted at any time. The deadline for the next allocation period (April 1st, 2011) is December 1st, 2010.

There are only two allocation periods per year, that is on April 1st and October 1st. For the next allocation period starting on April 1st 2011 all projects must be submitted within December 1st, 2010.

Please make sure that you have an active username and password so that you can download the submission form. The form will automatically be filled in with the credentials of the user logging in and downloading the form.

The proposals of a previously successful production project is available as a template.

CSCS application analysts are willing to read a draft proposal if sent no later than 2 weeks before the deadline.  This may help you to improve your proposal, however, acceptance is not guaranteed as the proposal still enters the regular review process.

Details on Proposal Preparation and Submission »