CC* Compute: The Arizona Federated Open Research Computing Enclave (AFORCE), an Advanced Computing Platform for Science, Engineering, and Health

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

Drawing upon its mission to enable access to discovery and scholarship in science, engineering, and health, Arizona State University (ASU) is deploying the Arizona Federated Open Research Computing Enclave (AFORCE). AFORCE provides cutting-edge technology to support research and education while advancing the knowledge and understanding of deploying 21st-century cyberinfrastructure in a large public research university.

Specifically, this state-of-the-art system is supporting multidisciplinary research and education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains including computational genomics, molecular dynamics, computational materials science, robotics, and imaging.

To increase computational capacity, AFORCE comprises a pool of multiple graphical processing unit (GPU) accelerated computing nodes accessible to extramural researchers through federated authentication provided via InCommon. Moreover, the AFORCE system itself is part of the global Open Science Grid computing pool. ASU also promotes and enables the use of Open Science Grid by incorporating its capabilities into regular training sessions and faculty engagement events.

Finally, AFORCE is configured to also provide cloud burst capabilities allowing compute jobs to be scheduled on commercial clouds. Early career faculty will be specifically targeted for workshops and tutorials, helping encourage their participation in the AFORCE system.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.