The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has announced that IBM has joined as one of the cloud resource providers for the Critical Techniques, Technologies, and Methodologies for Advancing Foundations and Applications of Big Data Sciences and Engineering (BIGDATA) program solicitation in Fiscal Year (FY) 2018.
From the news update:
IBM joins Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure in providing cloud credits/resources to qualifying NSF-funded projects, thereby supporting researchers in their big data research and education activities, especially those focusing on large-scale experimentation and scalability studies.
Following the introduction and success of the cloud option last year, CISE issued a call to encourage participation by all cloud providers.
Proposals submitted to the NSF BIGDATA program that request cloud credits/resources must adhere to a maximum 70-30 split between the requested NSF funds and the requested cloud resources, respectively, and must not request less than $100,000 for cloud resources.
Proposers interested in using IBM cloud resources may use the information on the following webpage to develop the total cost of cloud resources along with an annual usage plan over the duration of their projects: https://www.ibm.com/cloud/pricing. Corresponding information for the other cloud providers is provided in the BIGDATA program solicitation.
BIGDATA proposal submissions are due between May 7 and May 14, 2018 (and no later than 5 p.m. submitter’s local time on May 14th). All those interested in submitting a proposal should refer to the solicitation for details.
Of the 21 BIGDATA awards announced in FY 2017, eight benefited from the cloud option. We are confident that our partnerships with AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, and now IBM will help accelerate research and innovation in big data and data science. We look forward to the response from the national big data and data science research community!