Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI)

Provides the resources and technical expertise to meet the expanding need for high-end computation and information technologies required by the U.S. academic community. The PACI Program supports two partnerships, each consisting of a leading-edge site and a significant number of partners. The two leading-edge sites maintain a variety of high-end computer systems. Together with partners who support smaller versions of these and other computers and experimental systems, they constitute a distributed metacomputing environment that is connected via high-speed networks. PACI sites also participate in the development, application, and testing of the necessary software, tools, and algorithms that contribute to the expansion of this "national grid" of interconnected, high-performance computing systems.

The activities of the partnerships focus on the following: accessibility to a diverse set of advanced and mid-range computer engines, data storage systems, and experimental machine architectures; enabling technologies--through the development of software tools for parallel computation and software for use on the partnerships' widely distributed and architecturally diverse machines and data sources, thus enabling effective use of the partnerships' very large distributed systems; application technologies--engage groups in high-end applications to develop and optimize their discipline-specific codes and software infrastructures, making them available to the program as a whole and to researchers in other areas; education outreach and training--build a growing awareness and understanding of how to use high performance computing and communications resources and broaden the base of participation to help ensure the Nation's continued world leadership in computational science and engineering.