Accounts & Access

The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) provides leading scientists with the next-generation HPC resources for Computationally intensive breakthrough research to address global challenges. The following key programs describes how ALCF resources are accessed.

Director's Discretionary Program

Discretionary allocations are "start up" awards made to potential future INCITE projects. Projects must demonstrate a need for leadership-class resources. Awards may be made year round to industry, academia, laboratories and others, and are usually between three and six months in duration. The size of the award varies based on the application and its readiness/ability to scale; awards are generally from the low tens of thousands to the low millions of hours.

INCITE - Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment

ALCF resources are available to researchers as a part of the U.S. Department of Energy's INCITE program. Established in 2003, the program encompasses high-end computing resources at Argonne and other national laboratories. The INCITE program specifically seeks out computationally intensive, large-scale research projects with the potential to significantly advance key areas in science and engineering. The program encourages proposals from universities, other research institutions, and industry. Current research applications include areas such as chemistry, combustion, astrophysics, genetic, materials science and turbulence.

ALCC - ASCR Leadership Computing Challenge

Open to scientists from the research community in academia and industry, the ALCC program allocates resources to projects with an emphasis on areas directly related to Department of Energy's energy missions, national emergencies, or for broadening the community of researchers capable of using leadership computing resources. Projects are awarded an ALCC allocation based on a peer review for scientific merit and computational readiness.