About NAISS

The National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden (NAISS) is the new infrastructure organization for high-performance computing, storage, and data services for academic users in Sweden. NAISS is hosted by Linköping University but acts independently with a national perspective and responsibility. NAISS main funding is provided by the Swedish Research council (VR) while the user support, organized in a decentralized branch-structure, is built up in partnership with several Swedish universities.

From the users perspective, there will initially only be minimal differences between the previous SNIC and NAISS regimes. The allocation process of our resources will continue in the same way as previously, se Allocations for more information on NAISS Rounds of applications.

Some other frequently asked question (FAQ) about the transition from SNIC to NAISS is outlined below.

NAISS has taken over the financing of the existing systems Dardel, Tetralith, Alvis, Bianca and Rackham, as well as storage systems and cloud services located at different sites across Sweden. Over time, NAISS will consolidate new hardware resources to a single national site. Staff and support functions will continue to be distributed across Sweden as NAISS will establish local branches in collaboration with universities.

NAISS is governed by its steering committee:

Chairman:
Jan-Eric Sundgren, senior advisor, Teknikföretagen (until 2024-12-31)

Members:
Marianne Sommarin, professor, Umeå University (until 2024-12-31)
Thorsten Mauritsen, associate professor, Stockholm university (until 2024-12-31)
Susan Aalto, professor, Chalmers University of Technology (until 2026-12-31)
Erik Lindahl, professor, KTH (until 2026-12-31)
Bengt Persson, professor, Uppsala University (until 2026-12-31)
Anders Ynnerman, professor, Linköping University (until 2026-12-31)

NAISS acting Director:
Björn Alling, associate professor in Theoretical Physics, LiU.

Links to the minutes of NAISS steering committee

Links to previous NAISS news-letters

FAQ

What types of resources will NAISS provide to support Swedish research?

NAISS will provide HPC, storage, and data resources, including systems suitable for machine-learning and AI tasks. The starting point is that NAISS takes over the responsibility for all the previous SNIC systems that has been planned to run beyond 2022. Notably Dardel, Tetralith, Alvis, Bianca and Rackham. From the users perspective, 2023 will be extremely similar to 2022. Then, NAISS will set up new resources, replacing the old and covering the growing needs among Swedish academic users of HPC resources.

Our project was awarded a SNIC allocation that runs into 2023 - will anything about that change?

All projects that were awarded SNIC allocations (of computation time and/or storage and/or application expert assistance) in 2023 will be continued under NAISS – so the allocations effectively stay the same. Log in, software, hardware, the SUPR-portal, etc stay the same. Smaller changes, e.g. in acknowledgement texts in publications, updates in user agreements etc will be communicated to the users in early 2023.

Our project has been awarded a new SNIC allocation that will start in 2023 - how will we log in and use the systems/storage?

In exactly the same way as previously under SNIC during 2022. The systems and storage stay the same. The user and project portal SUPR stays the same.

How, when and where can our project apply for a NAISS allocation?

From 2 January 2023 in the SUPR portal, just as under SNIC during 2022. Applications sent in to SNIC very late 2022 will be handed over to NAISS.

Where/how can our project get help to prepare an application for a NAISS allocation?

All applications for NAISS allocations will be done through the same SUPR system as previously under SNIC. All documentation needed is present at the existing www.snic.se web resources that will be kept on-line during a transition time until the www.naiss.se web resources have been fully updated. If additional help is needed, contact info@naiss.se

From 2023 onwards, who should we contact if our project has problems using NAISS resources?

Support for problems using NAISS resources should be sought for in the very same ways as under SNIC, for example using the support form in SUPR. NAISS, including local NAISS branches, will continue to run existing systems and provide support for them in terms of system support and first and mid-level users support. Advanced user support, mainly funded by universities as in-kind contributions to SNIC, will be continually funded by the universities and coordinated by NAISS.

How will support services work under NAISS?

To a large degree, support functions and support channels for users of NAISS resources during 2023 will be the same as for SNIC users during 2022. Use the support form in SUPR. The www.snic.se web and its support content will be kept online until the naiss.se web is complete.

Will NAISS be running training events to help researchers to improve their high-performance computing skills and/or to use NAISS systems?

Yes. NAISS will run NAISS-training events for this purpose building on the positive experience from the SNIC-training. Information about these activities will be provided at the naiss.se website and through e-mail to users of NAISS-resources.