NSCC Call for Research Project

1. Overview
2. Eligibility & Requirement
3. Account Creation
4. Project Application
5. Resource Approval Criteria
6. Additional Resources
7. Project Expiration
8. Acknowledgement

Cycle	Application Period	Notification of Application Results*	Resource Allocation Period	Project Status
Jul’21	1 Mar – 31 Mar 2021 (CLOSED)	Jun 2021	1 Jul 2021 to 30 Jun 2022	Ended
Jan’22	1 Sep – 30 Sep 2021 (CLOSED)	Dec 2021	1 Jan 2022 to 31 Dec 2022	Ongoing
Jul’22	1 Mar – 31 Mar 2022 (CLOSED)	Jun 2022	1 Jul 2022 to 30 Jun 2023	Ongoing
Jan’23	Please refer to the Call for Early Use of ASPIRE 2A^	^	^	^
Jul’23	Mar 2023	Jun 2023	1 Jul 2023 to 30 Jun 2024 (on ASPIRE 2A)

Table 1: Application and resource allocation period for project cycles.

1. Overview

Important Note:

As previously announced, NSCC is building a new supercomputer which is expected to be commissioned and open to users during this project cycle. Please be prepared that you may be required to transition from ASPIRE 1 into the new ASPIRE 2A supercomputer at some point in the project cycle. Details of the transition will be provided at a later date.

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In July 2017, the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore officially started allocating resources on a per-project basis for users who require resources beyond the personal quota of 50 GB storage and 100,000 CPU core hours for NSCC ASPIRE 1.

Also available for use is the [email protected] Platform. This platform is deployed in support of AI Singapore (AISG), a national programme set up to drive AI adoption, research and innovation in Singapore. The system consisting of six DGX-1 nodes are meant for projects that focus on AI research with the particular novelty on scale and/or throughput breakthrough. NSCC is now accepting project proposals for allocating resources to the AI System.  

Learn more about the ASPIRE 1 and AI System here.

2. Eligibility & Requirement

• Project calls are only eligible for applicants from stakeholder organisations.
• The applicant should be the Principal Investigator (PI) or the supervisor of the project. If required, the PI may authorise a team member to submit the application on their behalf.
• The applicant will be contact person for project approval, updates, and management of the project users and resources.
• Member(s) of accepted projects may be selected for an oral presentation, be required to do a poster presentation or submit a paper of their project at NSCC’s annual SupercomputingAsia (SCA) conference or its technical arm, Supercomputing Frontiers Asia (SCFA), in Singapore.

3. Account Creation

• Users from stakeholder organisations (A*STAR, NTU, NUS, SUTD, TCOMS, NEA¹): apply for an account now at https://user.nscc.sg.
• Users from the other organisations: please write to [email protected] for more information.
• Please refer to Getting Started with NSCC Supercomputing on ASPIRE 1 for more information.

¹For NEA users, please contact [email protected] for account creation.

4. Project Application

• For projects from the Jan’22 Cycle (projects ending 31 Dec 2022), please refer to the Call for Early Use of ASPIRE 2A if you wish to continue your project beyond 31 Dec 2022.
• For projects from the Jul’22 Cycle (projects ending 30 Jun 2023), your project will be eventually migrated to ASPIRE 2A. More information will be released soon.
• The Call for Research Project will be re-launched in the first half of 2023.

For New Applications:

• Please refer to the Call for Early Use of ASPIRE 2A.

For Renewal Applications:

1. Update the project deliverables achieved for the previous cycle under the “Deliverables” button via the Projects Portal.
2. Refer to the Call for Early Use of ASPIRE 2A if you wish to renew your project.

5. Resource Approval Criteria

The project allocations are reviewed by the Policy & Resource Allocation Committee (PRAC) and Technical Resource Allocation Committee (TRAC) with representatives from the NSCC stakeholders and AI Singapore (for the AI System), based on scientific merits and technical feasibility.

For all project applications, the criteria for resource approval includes:

• Scientific merits of the project
• Quality and completeness of the application
• Expected deliverables (e.g. number of patents, publications and postgraduate students etc.)
• Track record of applicant (based on resources utilisation and deliverables achieved for previously approved projects, if any.)

For project renewals, applications will be reviewed for the following:

• Project’s resource usage (Please note that if the previously granted resources have less than 70% utilisation, the new resource requests may be subjected to reduction)
• Deliverables achieved

6. Additional Resources

For requests of additional resources after project approval, please email [email protected] with the following details:

1. Project ID
2. New resource request requested
3. Reasons for the new request (e.g. how was the resources used, applications used etc.)
4. Calculations of the requested resource
5. Utilisation plan over the remaining months till the end of the project cycle
6. Deliverables achieved as of now

Please note that the lead time will be around 2 to 4 weeks.

7. Project Expiration

Projects that are not renewed will expire by the end of the 1-year project cycle. Renewal application should be submitted for project extending beyond a year.

• Project quota will be set to zero (0) hours and no jobs will be dispatched.
• All project data will remain in the system for 30 days.
• After 30 days, all project data will be archived.
• Charges will be incurred for retrieval of archived data at $0.022/GB.
• All archived data will be retained for 5 months from the date of archival.

Please plan your resource utilisation wisely and use your allocated resources as early as possible to avoid encountering resource bottlenecks towards the end of the project cycle.

8. Acknowledgement

• The applicant will be notified of the project approval status before the start of the resource allocation period.
• Projects that have been granted resources are obliged to acknowledge NSCC in any published work. A sample of the text can be found in the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP); which details can be found below.

Citation: All academic journal or conference papers shall cite NSCC with the following:

“The computational work for this article was (fully/partially) performed on resources of the National Supercomputing Centre, Singapore (https://www.nscc.sg).”

• Users are required to update a brief report of deliverables achieved from utilising NSCC’s resources on the Projects Portal at the end of the project. For projects not submitted through the Projects Portal, submit your deliverables report through the Deliverables Report Submission Site.

Updated 29 September 2022