{"id":35883,"date":"2025-03-13T12:57:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T16:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/?page_id=35883"},"modified":"2025-11-03T12:34:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T17:34:21","slug":"bu-airr-call-for-proposals","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/bu-airr-call-for-proposals\/","title":{"rendered":"BU-AIRR Call for Proposals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>The call for applications period has now closed. Check back for announcements of future calls.<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The BU AI Research Resource (BU-AIRR) is a resource program established by <span>the Office of Research and the Hariri Institute for Computing <\/span><span>aimed at <\/span><span>enabling and seeding large-scale AI research at Boston University by funding access to powerful production cloud resources of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nerc.mghpcc.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New England Research Cloud (NERC)<\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AI research increasingly requires large amounts of computational resources (in the form of Graphics Processing Units \u2013 GPUs) that in their most advanced form have a cost that is beyond the reach of individual research groups. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a result, much of the advanced AI research to train large deep neural network models is performed on the cloud. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NERC offers access to top-of-the-line CPUs, storage solutions, a number of Nvidia A100 GPUs, and has recently acquired 192 Nvidia H100 GPUs that are expected to go on-line in December 2024. NERC is a fee\/hour service available to any BU researcher, and researchers from several other institutions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In September 2024, a call for applications was issued to solicit applications from BU faculty interested in access to the <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">cloud services for research through the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nerc.mghpcc.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New England Research Cloud (NERC)<\/span><\/a><b>.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>In January 2004, we announced that 2024 BU-AIRR program awarded $290,000 to 26 AI research projects from 35 BU faculty members affiliated with six colleges and 13 departments. Funding was made possible through contributions from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hariri Institute<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">College of Engineering<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/academics\/departments-and-divisions\/electrical-and-computer-engineering\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Department of Electrical &amp; Computer Engineering<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/research\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Office of Research<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Learn about the 2024 BU-AIRR program awardees <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/2025\/01\/14\/announcing-bu-airr-award-recipients\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Learn about\u00a0 2024 Call for Proposal Submission requirements below.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For any questions, please reach out to Nancy Clinton, at <a href=\"mailto:nclinton@bu.edu\">nclinton@bu.edu<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">Proposal Requirements<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proposers should apply by filling out the web form below. Researchers can either upload a PDF or select the &#8220;Proposal Form&#8221; option to provide responses to prompts directly in the web form. Proposals are due November 16, 2024, with rolling acceptance of proposals after the due date, if funding permits.\u00a0<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The length of the proposal should be around one page and should not exceed two pages using font and formatting instructions applicable to NSF proposals. References are excluded from the page length limit.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The proposal should include the following components:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>1. Scientific Goal and Potential Impact<\/h4>\n<p>Please explain the scientific goal and potential impact of your project.<\/p>\n<h4>2. Estimate of GPU Compute and Storage<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Please provide detailed information about the number of experiments, what each experiment will entail, and an estimated number of NVIDIA A100 or H100 GPU hours and the <strong>specific cost<\/strong> associated with those hours. Please \u201cshow your work\u201d in coming up with estimates. <b>NERC pricing can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/nerc-project.github.io\/nerc-docs\/get-started\/cost-billing\/how-pricing-works\/\" title=\"https:\/\/nerc-project.github.io\/nerc-docs\/get-started\/cost-billing\/how-pricing-works\/\" data-outlook-id=\"6ef9caab-77f6-46ac-97ad-02781f91669c\">here<\/a><\/b><span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h4>3. Sponsored Programs that will be Enabled<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This can include current projects and future proposed projects. Provide specifics about current projects <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(PIs, title, sponsor, award number, dates, and amount) <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and future proposed projects (program, sponsor, agency, deadlines).<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>4. References<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The call for applications period has now closed. Check back for announcements of future calls. The BU AI Research Resource (BU-AIRR) is a resource program established by the Office of Research and the Hariri Institute for Computing aimed at enabling and seeding large-scale AI research at Boston University by funding access to powerful production cloud [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35883"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35883"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35901,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35883\/revisions\/35901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}