How Do I Register?

To access our HPC facilities you must be a member of an HPC Project. Read on to understand what an HPC Project is, and who is eligible to apply.

HPC Projects

An HPC project is a record of your request, a grouping of users who you want to access resources on the HPC, as well as a place to view the reports, utilisation data and analysis of historic jobs. We also use your HPC project on the portal in a public directory of users of our facilities. The description of the tools and software used in your project, as well as the type of computation and workflow will be used to inform others about the impact of the HPC facilities on Newcastle University research output.

A HPC project should be for a single, well-defined project or activity. The creation of generic 'lab' or 'group' projects is not permitted, as per our Access, Accounts & Projects policies.

HPC Accounts

All user accounts must be a member of at least one HPC project.

Who Can Apply?

To apply for a new HPC project account, you must have an existing Newcastle University IT account - this implies that you must either be a member of staff, or a student enrolled on one or more academic modules or programmes.

For more details about restrictions on accounts, please view our Access, Accounts & Policies page.

Staff

  • All staff who hold a Newcastle University IT account may apply for an HPC project account
  • All HPC project requests must state at least two owners; a primary, and a secondary
    • The primary owner of a project must be a permanent member of staff
    • The secondary owner of a project must be a permanent member of staff, but will only be contacted in the event the primary is unavailable
  • Other members of a project may be guests or honorary staff, but must still have a valid IT account

Students

  • Any student may make a request to create a new HPC project account
  • The request should be supported by your supervisor, tutor, module leader or degree programme director
  • We may, in certain cases create a HPC project account for a module cohort, rather than an individual student (e.g. if the request is likely to be replicated from multiple students in the same module)
  • The primary and secondary owner of a student HPC project account must always be permanent members of staff

Teaching

Use of the HPC facilities for asynchronous teaching, i.e. self-study, project work and non-timetabled activity is generally considered to be within the scope of normal HPC projects and will be processed as per a normal request.

If you have a need to use the HPC facilities for synchronous practical sessions, on a regular, timetabled basis, or for substantial numbers of taught students, please contact the RSE team before making your request, as this may need special consideration by our academic leadership team.

Applying for An Account

Rocket

The ability to register further Rocket HPC projects, as well as alter membership of existing projects was frozen in early summer 2025 whilst we worked on the installation and commission of Comet and began the migration of projects and users to that new system.

Comet

Whilst the Comet HPC facility is not yet live, when it does go live all requests for new HPC projects and accounts will be handled through this website. Once live, you will be able to register new HPC projects using the My HPC Projects link, accessed from the menu under the 'My Account' button from the top of any page.

The anticipated date for new Comet HPC Project registrations is approximately late November 2025.

The new request workflow for Comet HPC projects is handled entirely within this website - you do not need to raise an ITService ticket with NUIT.

Note: You must pass the HPC Driving Test before being able to request a new project, or log in to the facility.

The full criteria for registering a new HPC Project can be found in our Policies - Access, Accounts & Projects section.

Back to Getting Started