What UC Davis Student Farm does

UC Davis HPC Core Facility (HPC@UCD) operates as the centralized high-performance computing research infrastructure provider for the UC Davis campus, managing four primary compute clusters (Hive, Farm, Franklin, HPC2) totaling over 48,000 CPU cores, 200+ GPUs, and dozens of petabytes of parallel storage. As a campus research core facility within the UC Davis Office of Research, it serves all four UC Davis colleges (College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, College of Biological Sciences, College of Engineering, College of Letters and Science), the School of Medicine, the School of Veterinary Medicine, and the Genome Center, supporting faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and staff engaged in computational research spanning genomics, biomedical research, structural biology, climate science, astrophysics, molecular dynamics, and digital pathology.

The technical platform integrates Slurm job scheduling, Quobyte parallel file system (10.4 PB on Hive), CernVM-FS for software distribution, Spack for software builds, and Kerberos-based authentication, with a web-based Open OnDemand interface providing JupyterLab, RStudio, VS Code, and Linux desktop access. Proprietary tooling includes the HiPPO (High-Performance Personnel Onboarding) portal for account provisioning, PI group management, and SSH key administration, plus per-PI Globus collections for multi-terabyte data transfers with external collaborators. The facility is undergoing active consolidation, with HPC2 migrating to Hive in mid-2026 and LSSC0 (Genome Center) already decommissioned in April 2026.

HPC@UCD employs a "condo model" revenue structure where principal investigators purchase compute and storage resources proportional to their needs, receiving priority allocation with a "one-minute guarantee" and 5-year guaranteed access for hardware purchases. Standard recharge rates effective July 1, 2026 are $3.09 per CPU core per month, $2.65 per TB per month for primary storage, and $2.11 per TB per month for backup storage; system administration services are billed at $117.50 per hour. All UC Davis researchers receive free baseline access to the Farm cluster's "low" partition (14,720 CPUs, 66 TB RAM, 47 GPUs), with the facility also receiving university funding to support personnel and operations costs.

Name

UC Davis Student Farm

Legal name

The Regents of the University of California, Davis campus

Website

https://hpc.ucdavis.edu

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

UC Davis HPC Core Facility (HPC@UCD) operates four compute clusters with 48,000+ CPU cores and 200+ GPUs, serving all UC Davis colleges and schools through a condo model where PIs purchase resources and all university researchers receive free baseline access.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

High-Performance Computing Services

NAICS

Computer Facilities Management Services (541513), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415)

SIC

Electronic Computers (3571), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

HPC Clusters & Scale-Out Compute (x86/ARM) (HDACAOAB)

akta.pro secondary industries

HPC / AI-Optimized Data Center Facilities (HDABACAJ), AI/HPC Converged Systems (Hybrid Training/Simulation) (HDACAOAD)

Keywords

• High-performance computing
• Research computing services
• Compute cluster hosting
• Academic storage services
• HPC infrastructure management

Headquarters

HQ city

Davis

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations

Revenue model

1. Condo Model - Equipment Purchases: PIs purchase HPC equipment (compute nodes, storage) with resources made available in shared clusters. Equipment provides 5-year guaranteed access. Contributors receive priority allocation with 'one-minute guarantee'. Hardware older than 7 years is not supported.
2. Recharge Rates - CPU/Storage: Monthly CPU core charges ($3.09/core/month as of July 2026) and storage rates (primary $2.65/TB/month, backup $2.11/TB/month). Resources charged in perpetuity until PI notifies HPC@UCD of termination.
3. System Administration Services: Hourly rate ($86.50/hr, increasing to $117.50/hr July 2026) for special projects, maintenance, and configuration work beyond standard support.
4. University Funding - Personnel/Operations: University assists with funding of HPC core facility personnel and operations costs, complementing PI-purchased equipment model.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

HPC@UCD operates multiple centrally managed high-performance computing clusters (Hive, Farm, Franklin, HPC2) providing compute, storage, and software resources to UC Davis researchers. The facility operates a condo model where principal investigators purchase proportional compute and storage resources, with free baseline access available to all UC Davis researchers. Services include web-based job submission via Open OnDemand, Globus-based data transfer, software module distribution via CernVM-FS/Spack, and dedicated technical support through helpdesk and office hours.

Product overview

HPC@UCD (UC Davis High Performance Computing Core Facility) provides a unified HPC infrastructure platform consisting of four primary compute clusters (Hive, Farm, HPC2, and Franklin) serving researchers across all UC Davis colleges, schools, and the Genome Center. The platform operates on a condo model where principal investigators purchase proportional compute and storage resources while receiving free baseline access to shared infrastructure. Core services include distributed computing with over 48,000 CPU cores and 200+ GPUs, parallel storage systems (Quobyte/ZFS), software module repositories (Spack/CernVM-FS), and web-based job submission via Open OnDemand. User support encompasses account management through the HiPPO portal, technical helpdesk, weekly office hours, and training partnerships with DataLab. The facility manages system design, procurement, installation, maintenance, and administration for campus-wide HPC resources.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Hive Cluster Centrally managed, standardized compute cluster available to the research community across all UC Davis schools. As of June 2026, comprises 104 nodes with 12,160 CPU cores, 103 TB RAM, and 44 GPUs, using the Slurm scheduler with Quobyte parallel file system.
• Farm Cluster

Quantifiable outcome

• Reduced project timelines from years to months for computational research
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers14 records

Segments8 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration16 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• UC Davis DataLabcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHPC@UCD partners most closely with DataLab as part of the UC Davis research computing ecosystem. Joint activities include co-hosting office hours (HPC experts with DataLab advisors), providing remote computing workshops, and offering training on topics from basic HPC to advanced R and Python. DataLab publishes an HPC toolkit with resource links.
• UC Davis Office of ResearchcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHPC@UCD is a campus research core facility under the Office of Research, which provides university funding for personnel and operations costs. The Vice Chancellor's Office approved HPC@UCD recharge rates effective May 1, 2023.
• NSF ACCESS ProgramminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHPC@UCD participates in the NSF ACCESS program providing national computing resources. The facility connects researchers to ACCESS resources and supports ACCESS proposal writing workshops.
• QuobytecoreTechnology or IntegrationHive cluster uses Quobyte clustered file system for primary storage, providing enhanced performance, reliability, and ease of administration with a single namespace for data. Quobyte supports MPI-IO with MPICH or OpenMPI version 5 and above.
• UC Systemwide IT CollaborationsminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHPC@UCD participates in UC-wide collaborations including UC Carpentries workshop series and maintains compliance with UCOP policies (IS-3 mandates, Ubuntu 22.04 policy).

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Google Cloud HPC: Google Cloud's HPC and AI infrastructure services providing scalable compute for research workloads. A broader incumbent competitor offering capacity that researchers may choose over internal campus facilities like HPC@UCD.
• AWS HPC (ParallelCluster / Batch): Amazon's commercial HPC offering including AWS ParallelCluster and AWS Batch. Represents the primary external alternative for compute-heavy research workloads and competes with campus facilities for grant-funded compute spend.

Direct peers

• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC): UT Austin's advanced computing center operating multi-cluster HPC infrastructure for academic researchers. Comparable in cluster portfolio, scale, and academic research focus to HPC@UCD's Hive/Farm/Franklin/HPC2 environment.
• San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC): UC San Diego's HPC center within the same University of California system. Operates large-scale clusters and storage for UC researchers and broader scientific community, making it a directly comparable campus-and-system-level HPC facility.
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA): University of Illinois's HPC center providing cluster and storage resources to academic researchers. Comparable campus-based facility operating large-scale Linux clusters with similar research computing mission to HPC@UCD.
• MIT SuperCloud / MIT Research Computing: MIT's centralized HPC and data center serving MIT faculty and students with a condo-style buy-in model and shared clusters. Comparable scale, governance, and customer profile to HPC@UCD.
• Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC): Joint CMU/University of Pittsburgh HPC center serving academic researchers with large-scale Bridges and Neocortex systems. Comparable in providing shared clusters, condo-style allocations, and AI/HPC converged workloads.
• Princeton Research Computing: Princeton's centralized HPC service operating the Della and Tiger clusters for university researchers. Directly comparable campus HPC facility with shared clusters, storage tiers, and PI condo model.
• Harvard FAS Research Computing (FASRC): Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences research computing group operating campus HPC clusters for Harvard researchers. Closely comparable in condo-style PI purchases, shared clusters, and R1 university customer base.
• Stanford Research Computing: Stanford's campus HPC core facility providing shared clusters and storage to university researchers. Most directly comparable to HPC@UCD as a peer R1 university operating a centralized condo-style HPC program with similar academic customer base.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/uc-davis-student-farm

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

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 UC Davis Student Farm