Access to EIDF

Our aim is to connect industry with researchers. We want to get academics working together with partners in the public, private and third sectors, at the crossroads of academic disciplines and real-world challenges, where exciting innovations take place.

Data-Driven Innovation What we do

EIDF hosts a number of distinct compute and data management services with different levels of availability and some variation in access patterns. The descriptions in the service catalogue will guide you. 

General access to EIDF services depends on your academic or commercial status and your relationship to the Data-Driven Innovation initiative (DDI). 

Computing services access and charging

Definitions

We define the EIDF Standard Offering as access to:   

• All EIDF's cloud services (virtual machines and notebooks) and storage up to several hundred terabytes.  
• The unique, evolving AI environment of the EIDF. This currently includes the following: 
  • The EIDF GPU Service (up to 12 GPUs at any given time).  
  • The Ultra2 shared memory, high-performance computing service. 
  • The Cerebras CS-2 Waferscale AI supercomputer, selected to rapidly accelerate AI research on EIDF.  

Access is granted on a project basis over a fixed period of time (e.g.  for the duration of a grant). You can, of course, request an extension and we will be happy to work with you on this.  

We define DDI Researchers as researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University. 

Academic access 

Academic projects involving an academic partner in the City Deal Region

For the 12-month period starting 1 August 2024 the charge for Academic research projects making use of the EIDF Standard Offering will be £1,545 per researcher FTE per annum (£772.50 for PhD students; access for MSc students is priced as a proportion of their overall course credits). This applies to all academics and researchers working in UK academic institutions, working with an academic partner based within the City Deal Region. These rates will increase with inflation on an annual basis.

Value Added Tax (VAT) applies, except for University of Edinburgh budgets on research grants.

Please apply on the EIDF Portal and seek a costing prior to application to the funder.

EIDF Portal. 

Academic projects without an academic partner in the City Deal Region

These are costed as per the requested services. Please apply on the EIDF Portal and seek a costing prior to application to the funder.

EIDF Portal. 

Collaborative industry access  

Collaborative academia-industry research projects can benefit from access to the EIDF Standard Offering.  

For the 12-month period starting 1 August 2024, the charge for projects involving commercial partners will be £7,725 per Researcher FTE per annum. This applies to all academics and researchers working in UK academic institutions. These rates will increase with inflation on an annual basis. Use beyond the EIDF Standard Offering is priced extra.

Value Added Tax (VAT) applies, except for University of Edinburgh budgets on research grants.

Please apply on the EIDF Portal and seek a costing prior to concluding negotiations with the funder.

EIDF Portal. 

Direct industry access within Scotland

Companies from within the City Region/Scotland can benefit from access to the EIDF Standard Offering free of charge for research and development activity.  There will be a fee for support and development services associated with any proposed projects. Please apply on the EIDF Portal and seek a costing for needs beyond the Standard Offering.  

EIDF Portal. 

Direct industry access outside Scotland

Companies from outside the City Region/Scotland can gain paid access to the EIDF for research and development activity, please apply on the EIDF Portal and seek a costing.  

EIDF Portal. 

Publishing data for research 

One of the goals of the DDI programme is the retention and reuse of datasets created by innovation projects. EIDF offers free, long-term publishing of datasets that EIDF and other users can access for future research and innovation projects. Please contact us on the EIDF Portal for more detail, and see the data management section of the service catalogue. 

EIDF Portal. 

Data management services catalogue.

Bespoke projects

EIDF has been designed to support a wide range of industry applications and EPCC can provide access to cloud, HPC and storage resources and to consultancy effort to exploit EIDF effectively. 

For commercial access to EIDF and EPCC expertise outwith a collaborative project please get in touch on the EIDF Portal. 

EIDF Portal: submit a support request.

Resource units 

Where we measure things for cost purposes we use the following units: 

• Storage on EIDF is currently granted in units of GiB, where 1 GiB is 1,048,576 kB. 
• Computing time on the Ultra2 large-memory service is measured by the core-hour. 1 Ultra2 core-hour is the equivalent of 1 physical core used for 1 hour. 
• Computing time on the GPU cluster, Cerebras accelerator and Graphcore systems are measured differently. Contact us for details.