Würthwein National Research Platform homepage
Citation
National Research Platform (NRP). “Shared research computing, run by the people who use it.” Website homepage, publication date unknown (events to October 2026). https://nrp.ai/. Read 2026-10-26.
Bottom line
- NRP pools GPUs, storage and hosted open-weight AI models “across more than 70 institutions”. It is “free to U.S. nonprofit research and education”, funded by NSF and “governed by the community that contributes to it”.
- The homepage says NSF 26-513 “names the NRP as one way for a Hub to integrate its on-site resources.”
- Frank K. Würthwein leads NRP research (SDSC page).
Background
The NRP homepage.
Key claims
- “The National Research Platform pools GPUs, petabyte-scale storage, and hosted open-weight AI models across more than 70 institutions. It is free to U.S. nonprofit research and education, funded by the National Science Foundation and governed by the community that contributes to it.” (top)
- Scale: “400+” nodes, “70+” locations, “3” continents, “5K+” users. (top)
- “NSF 26-513. The solicitation names the NRP as one way for a Hub to integrate its on-site resources.” (top, link to /ai-hubs)
- “How much does it cost? Nothing. We are funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation to provide free access to nonprofit research and education institutions.” (FAQ)
- “If your work is part of a scientific project or educational use at a U.S. nonprofit institution, yes. That includes community colleges, not just R1 universities.” (FAQ)
- Hardware contributors get “Priority access to your own hardware whenever you need it. When your group is not using it, other NRP users get opportunistic access.” (FAQ)
- Hosted models behind an “OpenAI-compatible” endpoint include
qwen3,glm-5,deepseek-v4-flashandgpt-oss. (Call open-weight models)
Evidence and method
The platform’s own homepage. The scale numbers have no date.
Limits
- The NSF 26-513 claim is NRP’s reading of the solicitation. Check it against the solicitation text.