The closing date and and time for bids is 11:00hrs GMT on 03/06/19. Do not apply directly to the buyer. All tender information MUST be submitted through the CCS e-sourcing portal.

UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) - Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) manages the ARCHER supercomputer service on behalf of the high performance computing (HPC) scientific user communities.

This multi-million pound investment, which commenced service in 2013, provides national capability for scientific research across the HEI sector requiring access to high performance computing resources. Supporting a community of academic researchers across the UK, ARCHER provides a prestigious national Tier 1 compute resource for scientific endeavour. As provider of the national HPC service supporting researchers in diverse scientific fields, EPSRC currently manages the provision and support of the ARCHER service. A future capital investment will secure the next generation of HPC service and ensure provision of new HPC architecture capable of addressing the demands of increasing complexity in scientific research.

The overall vision for ARCHER2 is to build on the existing Tier 1 and Tier 2 investments in national HPC facilities so that the UK is a recognised leader on the international scene for computational science and engineering. In order to achieve this, UK researchers must be able to carry out internationally competitive research across the remits of EPSRC, NERC and beyond. The benefits of the UK being world leading in computational science and engineering will be realised through:
- the enhanced reputation of the UK in science and engineering as a whole;
- the increased ability of UK researchers to make valuable contributions to the solution of complex scientific challenges and to the generation of quality scientific outputs;
- increased attractiveness of UK researchers as partners in high profile international collaborations and improved access to large HPC resources in other countries.
UKRI - EPSRC, as managing agent for the national HPC facility on behalf of the other Research Councils, is looking to tender contracts for three elements of the ARCHER2 facility: the hardware (to be based in Edinburgh); the service provision which manages academic access to the facility and the helpdesk; and the computational science and engineering (CSE) support which provides software development and training and support to users of the facility to enable their codes to run as effectively as possible. The hardware element of the ARCHER2 service will provide the compute resource, maintenance and support including storage and network connectivity to provide enhanced provision of HPC hardware for academic scientific research. The maximum budget for years 1-4 inc. VAT and all applicable duties and taxes is £48m. There will be an optional year 5 for maintenance and support (est. £2.4m inc. VAT). Net Values: £40m years 1-4, £2m optional year 5