Texas Advanced Computing Center

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.

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

Headquarters

HQ city

Austin

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations

Revenue model

1. 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.
2. 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

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core 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

Named customers6 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability6 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered supporting, major and core.

• Natura ResourcessupportingStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 March 2026Advanced 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 CentermajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026UT 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 LogicmajorTechnology or Integration · 18 November 2025Spectra 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.
• VersitysupportingTechnology or Integration · 18 November 2025Collaboration with Spectra Logic for Horizon supercomputer's archiving solution. Versity contributes to data management capabilities for exabyte-scale storage.
• Dell TechnologiescoreTechnology or Integration · 24 July 2023Long-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 CorporationcoreTechnology or Integration · 24 July 2023Intel 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 NetworksmajorTechnology or Integration · 24 July 2023Cornelis 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.majorTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2017Cray 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 PartnerssupportingStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2017Stampede2 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

Direct 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

• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/TACCutexas
• Facebookfacebook.com/tacc.utexas
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/texas-advanced-computing-center-tacc
• Instagraminstagram.com/taccutexas

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Texas Advanced Computing Center