Director’s Discretionary Allocation Program

The ALCF Director’s Discretionary program provides “start up” awards to researchers working to achieve computational readiness for for a major allocation award.

mMolecular dynamics simulations based on machine learning

Molecular dynamics simulations based on machine learning help scientists learn about the movement of the boundary between ice grains (yellow/green/cyan) and the stacking disorder that occurs when hexagonal (orange) and cubic (blue) pieces of ice freeze together. Image: Henry Chan and Subramanian Sankaranarayanan, Argonne National Laboratory

The ALCF Director’s Discretionary (DD) program is dedicated to helping researchers prepare for a major allocation award through DOE's INCITE and ALCC programs. The DD program is also used allocations on the ALCF AI Testbed systems, and our community file sharing system Eagle.

DD projects allow users to improve application performance to maximize scientific application efficiency and productivity on the ALCF’s leadership computing platforms. Projects must demonstrate a need for leadership-class resources.

Open to researchers from industry, academia, and government agencies, DD awards are available year-round on a rolling basis 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.

Apply for a DD award

Application Details

Eligibility:
Available to researchers from universities, industry, and government agencies DOE sponsorship is not required.
Award size:
Small
Duration:
3-6 months (renewable)
Allocation cycle:
Ongoing (available year-round)
Quarterly reports:
No
End of allocation reports:
No
HPC Systems Available
Polaris, ThetaGPU
AI Accelerators Available
Groq, Graphcore, SambaNova, and Cerebras
Community File Sharing Available
Eagle