ICHEC announces Priority Access to High-Performance Computing (HPC) for COVID-19 Research

ICHEC, the Irish Centre for High-Performance Computing, announced today, Monday, 23rd March, that it will expedite access for all scientific and academic research relating to COVID-19 on the National High-Performance Computer (HPC), “Kay”. Researchers with approved projects will be given fast-track access to HPC. 

J.C.Desplat, Director of ICHEC said;

“Research at the molecular level and the epidemiological level which contributes to understanding this virus, developing vaccines against it, or understanding how it spreads, are vital to support the national effort to combat Covid-19. HPC offers researchers the ability to test models at speeds traditional computing methods are incapable of. 

ICHEC will ensure all Covid-19 related research is prioritised on Kay. This includes fast-track access, prioritised compute jobs and code optimisation support on one of the most powerful computers in Ireland.

The international HPC community is united in offering support for Covid-19 research. In Europe, PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing, of which Ireland is a member, is also supporting scientists to combat Covid-19 through priority access to HPC resources. A similar move was also announced by the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore.

ICHEC will consider any pertinent research on Covid-19 including urgent requirements to process/analyse large datasets for mitigation of the pandemic (updated 7th April 2020, see footnote [1]). Each approved project will be allocated up to one million core hours and one terabyte of storage.

Scientists and researchers interested in accessing HPC should contact urgent-computing@ichec.ie for details.

[1] This line has been changed from the original article which read: ICHEC will consider all research providing it has either been peer-reviewed via a funding body (e.g. the Health Research Board or the European Commission) or, can demonstrate it is an existing activity approved or in collaboration with a government agency for example the HSE, for Covid-19 related work - this was changed to provide more leeway and clarity for potential applicants.