December 2011, the Minister for Science announced a new 158m pounds sterling capital investment in e-infrastructure which included 43m

pounds sterling for ARCHER, the next national HPC facility for academic research.

The overall vision for ARCHER is to build on the existing 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 remit of EPSRC and NERC.

The ARCHER service comprises the hardware, Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) support, Service Provision support, hardware

accommodation support and external users.

EPSRC, as managing agent for the national HPC facility on behalf of the other Research Council, is now inviting bids for the Service Provision element of the facility.

The ARCHER service provider will be responsible for: integration with technology (in conjunction with the CSE support): front line service (via a help desk): service availability and reliability: scheduling and allocation of resources: and user registration and access.

Some aspects of the service provision will be based near Edinburgh.