U.S. university researchers who are supported by an NSF award can request an initial small allocation of up to 1,000,000 core-hours on Derecho or 2,500 GPU-hours on Derecho GPU. These allocations can be used to complete small projects or to conduct initial runs in preparation for submitting a request for a large allocation.

A graduate student, post-doctoral researcher, or new faculty member at a U.S. university can request a one-time allocation of up to 500,000 Derecho core-hours or 1,500 GPU-hours on Derecho GPU. These awards typically support dissertations, help foster early career research, or provide seed resources for pursuing funded research. An individual can request a new exploratory project at each stage of their career path. A new faculty member is any eligible researcher who has not previously had an NCAR allocation as a faculty member.

Earth system scientists can request access to NCAR’s Casper data analysis cluster and the Campaign Storage file system to allow them to conduct analyses on data sets curated by NCAR data services and accessible via our storage systems. We are pleased to make Data Analysis Project allocations available to researchers from any eligible institution regardless of the source of funding for the planned analysis. Researchers are only required to identify the specific NCAR-hosted data sets that are essential to completing their science objectives.

Researchers interested only in access to NCAR-hosted data – that is, using NCAR's data-access nodes to perform file-management operations – can submit Data Analysis project requests for such access. However, researchers are also encouraged to make use of the Casper system for data analysis to minimize their need to move large amounts of data to their home institutions.

CISL offers opportunities to undergraduate and graduate faculty and instructors at U.S. 2- and 4-year institutions to use NCAR HPC and analysis resources in their courses in Earth system science and related areas. “Special projects” or honors thesis courses under the guidance of a faculty member are eligible. If this request is related to classroom training please attach the syllabus at the end of the request.

NOTE: Only available to NCAR staff researchers NCAR projects supported by a funding award separate from NCAR base funding may request up to 2 million Derecho core-hours or 5,000 Derecho GPU-hours via an External Project allocation to support the objectives of the award. You will need to provide basic project information (title, abstract) and details of the supporting grant. External projects that require larger amounts of resources may start by requesting an initial amount here and submitting an NCAR Strategic Capability request at the next opportunity.

CISL is now accepting large-scale allocation requests from university-based researchers for the Derecho system as well as the Casper data analysis and visualization cluster with a submission deadline of March 4, 2026. We are actively seeking projects that can take advantage of Derecho’s 328 NVIDIA A100 GPUs. CISL accepts requests from university researchers for large-scale allocations every six months.
At the CISL HPC Allocations Panel (CHAP) spring 2026 meeting, CISL will allocate up to 500 million core-hours and 500,000 GPU-hours on the Derecho system. Campaign Storage requests will be highly scrutinized closely due to the current high levels of usage in that file system, therefore researchers are strongly encouraged to propose workflows that can leverage Derecho's scratch space, potentially with an increased storage quota.
Researchers should include the Casper system in their work plans to minimize the need to move data to their home institutions for analysis. Casper provides resources for data analysis and visualization activities and single-node jobs.
Researchers are encouraged to review the instructions before preparing their allocation requests. See our allocations documentation at https://arc.ucar.edu/docs/university-allocations. Please be aware that instructions for preparing your main request document have been updated to reflect increased scrutiny of storage requests.
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