Texas Advanced Computing Center
TACC is a non-profit university research center at UT Austin that designs and operates advanced supercomputing infrastructure for open science. It serves academic researchers, government agencies like NASA, and industry partners through NSF-funded systems including Stampede3, Frontera, and the incoming Horizon supercomputer.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2001
- HeadquartersAustin, United States
- Headcount—
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What Texas Advanced Computing Center does
The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), founded in 2001 and hosted by The University of Texas at Austin, designs and operates advanced computing infrastructure for open science research. It is a non-profit university research center — not a commercial entity — funded primarily through National Science Foundation awards and institutional support, with revenue mechanics structured around capital grants (e.g., the $10M Stampede3 award, NSF #2320757; the ~$457M NSF Leadership-Class Computing Facility) supplemented by Space Act Agreements with NASA and a STAR Industry Program for commercial users. TACC serves thousands of academic researchers, government agencies, and industry partners, with end-user access mediated through the NSF ACCESS allocation system using Service Unit (SU) accounting per node-hour (e.g., H100 at 4 SUs/node-hour, SKX at 1 SU/node-hour).
TACC's product portfolio spans six core supercomputers — Stampede3 (Intel Xeon Max CPUs, Ponte Vecchio and H100 GPUs, Cornelis 400Gb/s Omni-Path), Frontera, Lonestar6, Vista (Grace/Grace Hopper), Stallion (visualization), and the incoming Horizon (~4,032 GPUs, 1M+ cores, 400 PB storage) — plus supporting infrastructure including the Corral data management system, TACC Analysis Portal (TAP), visualization services, and cloud integrations with AWS and GCP. Domain-specialized platforms include DesignSafe, a 1.5 PB natural hazards engineering cyberinfrastructure with nearly 10,000 users and 1,700+ DOI-cited datasets. The center also runs workforce programs (WeTeach_CS, ALIGN AI literacy, Frontera Fellowship) and a TAPIS API for programmatic access.
Strategically, TACC leads the NSF LCCF project that is bringing the nation's largest academic supercomputer (Horizon) online in 2026, while expanding into biomedical (CFDE Cloud Workspace for NIH Common Fund data) and space research (expanded NASA Space Act Agreement; $9.2M Texas Space Commission grant for Space Domain Awareness). Vendor relationships with Dell, Intel, Cornelis Networks, Cray, Spectra Logic, and Versity anchor a tightly integrated technology stack. TACC has won the 2025 HPCwire Readers' and Editors' Choice Award and a Gordon Bell Prize for tsunami digital twin research, signaling peer-recognized technical leadership over its 25-year operating history.
Texas Advanced Computing Center firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Texas Advanced Computing Center
- Legal name
- Texas Advanced Computing Center
- Website
- https://tacc.utexas.edu
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2001
- Operating status
- Operating
- Short description
- TACC is a non-profit university research center at UT Austin that designs and operates advanced supercomputing infrastructure for open science. It serves academic researchers, government agencies like NASA, and industry partners through NSF-funded systems including Stampede3, Frontera, and the incoming Horizon supercomputer.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where Texas Advanced Computing Center is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Austin
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Texas Advanced Computing Center business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Infrastructure, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations
Revenue model
- NSF Funding: Primary funding from National Science Foundation awards for HPC infrastructure. Stampede3 funded by $10 million NSF award (award #2320757). Stampede2 funded by NSF award ACI-1540931. Horizon funded as part of $457 million NSF Leadership-Class Computing Facility project.
- NASA Space Act Agreement: UT System and NASA's Johnson Space Center collaboration through Space Act Agreement for joint research, workforce development, and STEM engagement.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | SKX Compute Nodes - 1 SU/node-hour |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | SPR Compute Nodes - 2 SUs/node-hour |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | H100 GPU Nodes - 4 SUs/node-hour |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | ICX Compute Nodes - 1.5 SUs/node-hour |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | NVDIMM Large Memory Nodes - 4 SUs/node-hour |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | PVC GPU Nodes - 3 SUs/node-hour |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
Texas Advanced Computing Center product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) designs, builds, and operates flagship supercomputers and supporting cyberinfrastructure that it makes available to researchers nationwide. It provides access to large-scale HPC, GPU, visualization, and storage systems, along with domain-specific platforms and user support, primarily through the NSF ACCESS allocation program.
Product overview
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) designs and operates a portfolio of advanced computing systems and services as part of the NSF ACCESS ecosystem. The core offerings include flagship supercomputers (Stampede3, Frontera, Lonestar6, Vista, Stallion, Horizon) providing CPU and GPU-based HPC capabilities for academic research. Supporting infrastructure includes storage systems (Corral), the TACC Analysis Portal for job management, and Visualization Services. TACC also extends its mission through educational programs including WeTeach_CS (K-12 CS teacher training), ALIGN (AI literacy initiative), and the Frontera Fellowship. Industry access is provided through the STAR Industry Program, while specialized platforms like DesignSafe serve specific research domains in natural hazards engineering.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- WeTeach_CS: Teacher professional development program empowering K-12 educators to teach computer science, operated by TACC's EPIC team.
- ALIGN
- CEO Initiative
- CEDI
- DesignSafe
Products and services
- Stampede3 Flagship NSF-funded supercomputer used by thousands of researchers across the U.S. for open science workloads including AI, simulation, and data analytics.
- Frontera Leadership-class HPC system deployed at TACC and allocated through NSF ACCESS for large-scale scientific computing projects.
- Lonestar6 General-purpose HPC cluster used by UT System researchers and their collaborators for computational science workloads.
- Vista Visualization and interactive data analysis system supporting large, high-resolution displays and remote use by researchers.
- Stallion High-performance parallel storage filesystem used to support data-intensive science on TACC systems.
- Horizon Storage cloud service for archival and bulk data needs of TACC users.
- DesignSafe Domain-specific cyberinfrastructure platform for natural hazards engineering research, providing data, computing, and analysis tools.
- STAR Industry Program
Quantifiable outcome
- More than 11 million simulations and data analysis jobs run on Stampede2 since deployment
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Texas Advanced Computing Center
Customer profileNamed customers6 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Texas Advanced Computing Center technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration3 records
AI capability6 records
Feature4 records
Texas Advanced Computing Center partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Nine partnerships are on record, tiered supporting, major and core.
- Natura ResourcessupportingAdvanced nuclear reactor developer partnering with UT Austin using TACC supercomputing resources for reactor physics and safety analysis of liquid-fueled molten salt technology. Simulations contributed to NRC construction application approval.
- NASA Johnson Space CentermajorUT System and NASA Johnson Space Center expanding collaboration through new Space Act Agreement signed in January. Unites all 13 UT campuses with NASA programs in joint research, workforce development, and STEM engagement. TACC supports NASA projects including Mars rovers and SPHEREx telescope.
- Spectra LogicmajorSpectra Logic selected to provide tape libraries for Horizon supercomputer's exabyte-scale archive. Deployment aims to support AI and simulation workloads with long-term data preservation at high capacity.
- VersitysupportingCollaboration with Spectra Logic for Horizon supercomputer's archiving solution. Versity contributes to data management capabilities for exabyte-scale storage.
- Dell TechnologiescoreLong-standing partnership with Dell Technologies for Stampede3 system. Dell provides PowerEdge servers including XE9640 servers with Intel Data Center GPU Max Series. Dave Lincoln, VP of compute systems at Dell, noted Stampede3 will be key to discovery for researchers studying galaxies, diseases, and other scientific challenges.
- Intel CorporationcoreIntel provides processors including Xeon CPU Max Series (Sapphire Rapids HBM), Data Center GPU Max Series (Ponte Vecchio), and networking technology. Stampede3 integrates Intel Max Series GPUs, the only system in NSF ACCESS to do so. Mark Hirsch, Intel VP, highlighted the combination of Max Series CPUs and GPUs for unprecedented productivity.
- Cornelis NetworksmajorCornelis Networks provides CN5000 Omni-Path Product Family offering 400Gb/s performance with 24 TB/s backplane bandwidth for low-latency, highly scalable network interconnect on Stampede3.
- Cray Inc.majorCray was a deployment partner for Stampede2 system along with Dell and Intel. Cray's expertise in supercomputing contributed to the 18 petaflop system's architecture.
- University Consortium PartnerssupportingStampede2 operated by team at TACC, UT Austin, Clemson University, Cornell University, University of Colorado at Boulder, Indiana University, and Ohio State University.
Scale indicators11 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Texas Advanced Computing Center competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- ACCESS (Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem): The NSF-coordinated consortium that includes TACC as a primary resource provider; allocating shared cyberinfrastructure across the academic ecosystem that TACC itself delivers to.
- Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC): Joint CMU/University of Pittsburgh center providing HPC resources via NSF ACCESS; operates Bridges-2 and is one of TACC's most direct academic HPC counterparts in the same ecosystem.
- National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA): University of Illinois-based NSF ACCESS partner operating flagship systems (Delta, Blue Waters) for open science; directly comparable mission, governance model, and funding structure to TACC.
- San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC): UC San Diego-based NSF ACCESS partner operating Expanse and other HPC systems for academic research; identical funding model, access mechanism, and scientific user base as TACC.
Broad incumbents
- National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC): DOE Office of Science user facility at LBNL operating Perlmutter; serves a similar scientific user base but with DOE rather than NSF funding.
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (OLCF): DOE-operated leadership computing facility (Frontier, exascale); broader federal mission and larger budget but serves overlapping scientific communities with similar supercomputing capabilities.
- Argonne National Laboratory (ALCF): DOE leadership computing facility (Aurora, Theta); operates at federal scale with overlapping HPC and AI workloads, but distinct from NSF-funded academic access mission.
- NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division: NASA's HPC facility at Ames (Pleiades, Aitken); comparable supercomputing scale and overlapping scientific mission, especially relevant given TACC's expanding NASA partnership.
Emerging players
- CoreWeave: GPU-cloud provider built on H100/H200 infrastructure for AI workloads; competing alternative for researchers and AI labs needing large-scale GPU compute outside the NSF allocation model.
Regional players
- RIKEN Center for Computational Science: Japanese national HPC center operating Fugaku; comparable leadership-class supercomputing mission for academic research but in a different national ecosystem.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks2 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Texas Advanced Computing Center social profiles
Digital presenceTexas Advanced Computing Center financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Texas Advanced Computing Center leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Texas Advanced Computing Center funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Texas Advanced Computing Center M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Texas Advanced Computing Center
What does Texas Advanced Computing Center do?
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) designs, builds, and operates flagship supercomputers and supporting cyberinfrastructure that it makes available to researchers nationwide. It provides access to large-scale HPC, GPU, visualization, and storage systems, along with domain-specific platforms and user support, primarily through the NSF ACCESS allocation program.
Is Texas Advanced Computing Center a public or private company?
Texas Advanced Computing Center is a private company. It is classified as state government owned and is currently operating.
When was Texas Advanced Computing Center founded?
Texas Advanced Computing Center was founded in 2001.
Where is Texas Advanced Computing Center based?
Texas Advanced Computing Center is headquartered in Austin, United States, in the North America region.
How does Texas Advanced Computing Center make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. NSF Funding is the primary driver. The others are NASA Space Act Agreement.
Who are Texas Advanced Computing Center's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are ACCESS (Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem), Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). Broad incumbents are National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (OLCF), Argonne National Laboratory (ALCF) and NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division. CoreWeave is listed as an emerging player. RIKEN Center for Computational Science is listed as a regional player.
Does Texas Advanced Computing Center have an API?
Yes. TACC provides TAPIS API for programmatic access to HPC resources, enabling job submission, allocation management, and system access. The TAPIS and Portal maintenance updates indicate API infrastructure is maintained for resource management. Developer documentation is at docs.tacc.utexas.edu.