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Getting Started on the PATh Facility

The PATh Facility is part of a pilot project funded by the NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. NSF-funded researchers can apply to request credits for the PATh facility. The facility aims to demonstrate the value of dedicated, distributed resources to the NSF Science and Engineering community.

Composed of current gen hardware, consisting of 30,000 cores and 36 A100 GPUs the PATh facility is built to run your high throughput computing workloads. Managed by the HTCondor Suite's Access Point the PATh facility is managed to make running these workloads easy.

To get started on the PATh Facility:

  • Confirm that you meet PATh Facility criteria
  • Request an account
  • Apply for credits (PATh Staff can provide immediate startup allocations for basic workflow prototyping.)

These steps are described below:

Meet PATh Facility Criteria

Groups are eligible to use the PATh Facility if:

  • they have an accepted or active NSF award with one of the affiliated programs below
  • they have an NSF proposal in preparation or pending review with one of the programs listed below

NSF Programs:

  • Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering
  • Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation
  • Innovation: Bioinformatics
  • Neural Systems
  • Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants
  • Chemical Theory, Models, and Computational Methods
  • Condensed Matter and Materials Theory
  • Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics ‒ Theory
  • Nuclear Physics ‒ Theory
  • Geoinformatics (GI)
  • Geophysics (PH)
  • Arctic Research Opportunities
  • Antarctic Research

Request an Account

To request an account on the PATh Facility, fill out the request form here:

PATh User Application

After filling out this form, a member of our Facilitation team will be in touch to arrange a short consultation and provide additional information about activating your account.

Request Credits

All compute time on the PATh Facility is charged using a credit system.

If you have not already applied for a credit allocation at the time of requesting an account, PATh staff can provide a small startup allocation for initial testing.

After start up testing, credits are allocated from the NSF via the relevant program officer. See our Request PATh Facility Credits guide for detailed information and templates on submitting a credit request.

If you have already applied for a credit allocation at the time of requesting an account, let us know that information and we will add credits to your project account.

Reach Out

If you're not sure where to start or are not sure if the PATh Facility is for you, we recommend either filling out the User Application form linked above or emailing PATh support staff at support@path-cc.io with any questions.