Erlangen National High Performance Computing Center (NHR@FAU)

Name

Erlangen National High Performance Computing Center (NHR@FAU)

Legal name

Erlangen National High Performance Computing Center (NHR@FAU)

Website

https://nhr.fau.de

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

NAICS

Computer Facilities Management Services (541513), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415), Other Computer Related Services (541519)

SIC

Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373), Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374)

akta.pro primary industry

High-Performance Computing (HPC) Cluster Nodes & Systems (HDACABAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

GPU/Accelerator Compute Servers (HDABADAC), AI Server Systems & HGX/Accelerator Platforms (HDAAAAAB), Performance Engineering & Scalability Testing (BPAEAKAK), AI/Neural Processing Units (NPUs) & ML Accelerators (HDAHAJAF)

Keywords

• High performance computing
• HPC infrastructure
• GPU computing
• Parallel computing
• Scientific computing

Headquarters

HQ city

Erlangen

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations

Revenue model

1. Public Research Funding: NHR@FAU is a publicly funded national HPC center. Operations are funded by federal authorities (BMBF - Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) and the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts. Tier-3 systems are funded by FAU or DFG Forschungsgroßgerät. BayernKI is funded by the Free State of Bavaria via its Hightech Agenda Initiative.
2. HPC Compute Time Allocation (In-Kind): Compute time is allocated through competitive project reviews (NHR projects, Tier3, BayernKI) rather than commercial sales. FAU basic supply accounts are free of charge for publicly funded research and theses. Extended compute needs require funded NHR project proposals.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

NHR@FAU operates a Tier3 national High Performance Computing infrastructure serving German university researchers, providing access to multiple specialized CPU and GPU clusters (Alex, Helma, Fritz, plus seven additional systems), a curated scientific software stack, performance optimization tools (LIKWID, ECM Performance Model, ClusterCockpit), and structured training programs. Compute time is allocated to FAU and other German university researchers through formal, peer-reviewed project applications via the JARDS portal, with Tier3 and FAU basic supply access free of charge for publicly funded research.

Product overview

NHR@FAU provides a unified HPC infrastructure platform consisting of multiple specialized clusters (Alex with NVIDIA A100/A40 GPUs, Helma with NVIDIA H100 GPUs, Fritz CPU cluster with massive parallelism, and smaller Tier-3 clusters for specific workloads), access mechanisms (JupyterHub, HPC Portal, SSH), and performance tools (ClusterCockpit, LIKWID, ECM Performance Model). The center also offers software applications including VASP, GROMACS, Amber, TensorFlow, PyTorch, and provides training courses and NHR project allocation via the JARDS portal.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Alex GPU Cluster
• Helma GPU Cluster
• Fritz CPU Cluster
• TinyGPU Cluster
• TinyFat Cluster
• Woody Cluster
• Meggie Cluster
• Testcluster
• ClusterCockpit Open-source web interface for job-specific performance monitoring, providing hardware performance counter metrics including flop rates, memory bandwidth, SIMD vectorization, network and file I/O metrics. Led by NHR@FAU.
• LIKWID Performance Tools Performance monitoring and benchmarking tools for CPU and GPU profiling, supporting hardware performance counter monitoring, roofline analysis, and performance engineering workflows.
• ECM Performance Model Execution Cache Memory (ECM) performance model for analyzing and optimizing code performance on HPC systems, providing analytical roofline models and performance engineering guidance.
• JARDS Application Portal Central online application portal operated for the NHR association, used by external scientists and researchers from German universities to apply for compute time across all nine NHR centers.
• NHR Training Courses Comprehensive training program covering GPU programming (CUDA, OpenACC), molecular dynamics (GROMACS), parallel programming (MPI, OpenMP), performance engineering, and software engineering (C++, Git, Python for HPC).
• MATLAB via JupyterHub Interactive MATLAB access via JupyterHub for eligible Tier3 HPC accounts, including GUI mode, available as Slurm jobs on compute nodes.
• Whisper Transcription Service Speech recognition service using 'Faster Whisper' model available via JupyterHub, supporting multilingual speech recognition and translation. Best suited for TinyGPU/Alex clusters for batch processing.

Quantifiable outcome

• NHR projects review process typically takes less than 3 months; test/porting projects decided within 3-4 weeks.
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers14 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration7 records

AI capability7 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered minor, core and major.

• ENG-INC EU Project ConsortiumminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 8 July 2026The ENG-INC (Energy Efficiency with Sustainable Performance) EU Project consortium held an on-site management meeting at FAU. NHR@FAU contributed to the program with Johannes Veh (Head of Support) providing guided tours of HPC infrastructure.
• International Society of Quantum Biology & Pharmacology (ISQBP)minorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 July 2026NHR@FAU staff (Anna Kahler and Marius Trollmann, FAU) participated in the 2026 ISQBP President's Meeting in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, presenting research on multi-scale biomolecular simulation.
• Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFAU is the host institution of NHR@FAU. As one of Germany's largest universities (approx. 40,000 students, 600+ professors, 16,000 staff), FAU provides institutional infrastructure, administrative support, and is the primary user base. NHR@FAU is listed as a Central Institution of FAU.
• BayernKI Initiative (Free State of Bavaria)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBayernKI (AI in Bavaria) is funded by the Free State of Bavaria via its Hightech Agenda Initiative. NHR@FAU operates Helma cluster GPU access for BayernKI AI researchers. The initiative provides compute resources specifically for AI/ML workloads including large language model deployment.
• Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNHR@FAU collaborates with GCS, the association of Germany's three federal Tier1 HPC centers: HLRS (Stuttgart), JSC (Jülich), and LRZ (Munich). Large NHR projects are advised to also apply to GCS Tier1 systems for additional compute time. GCS manages large-scale national HPC access calls.
• NHR Verein (NHR Association)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNHR@FAU is one of nine NHR centers in Germany under the NHR Verein association. The association coordinates the national HPC compute time application process via the JARDS portal and defines shared standards and scientific focus areas across centers.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• CINECA: Italian national HPC consortium. Comparable to NHR@FAU as a publicly funded national HPC center providing multi-cluster compute and HPC services to academic researchers across a national university system.
• HLRS (High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart): Germany's largest Tier1 HPC center, part of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing. Directly comparable to NHR@FAU as a publicly funded German national HPC center serving academic researchers, with overlapping hardware and software stacks and overlapping NHR allocation pathways.
• JSC (Jülich Supercomputing Centre): Forschungszentrum Jülich's Tier1 HPC center and GCS member. Comparable to NHR@FAU as a nationally funded German HPC center providing large-scale compute to academic researchers, with similar access models and shared standards across the NHR/GCS ecosystem.
• CSCS (Swiss National Supercomputing Centre): Switzerland's national HPC center. Comparable to NHR@FAU as a publicly funded national HPC center serving academic researchers with national-scale Tier3/Tier1 compute, shared standards, and a similar mix of Tier3 services and large-project escalations.
• NHR@ZIB (Berlin): Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin's NHR center. A direct counterpart within the nine-center NHR Verein, with the same NHR project application process via JARDS and overlapping Tier3 service offerings.
• LRZ (Leibniz Rechenzentrum): Bavarian Tier1 HPC center based in Munich and GCS member. The most regional near-peer to NHR@FAU, sharing Bavarian state funding sources and overlapping user communities across southern German universities.
• NHR@PC2 (Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing): Paderborn University's NHR center. Directly comparable as one of the nine NHR Tier3 centers sharing the national project allocation process and serving German academic researchers with HPC resources.
• GWDG (Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung Göttingen): Göttingen-based NHR center jointly operated by Max Planck Society and University of Göttingen. Comparable to NHR@FAU as one of the nine NHR Tier3 centers serving German academic users with HPC and data services.
• IT4Innovations (Czech Republic): Czech national supercomputing center. Comparable to NHR@FAU as a national HPC center serving academic researchers with multi-cluster infrastructure, similar access governance, and participation in European HPC partnerships.
• BSC (Barcelona Supercomputing Center): Spanish national supercomputing center and EuroHPC hosting site. Comparable to NHR@FAU as a public national HPC center serving academic researchers with multi-cluster infrastructure and advanced performance tooling.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@NHRFAU
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/nhrfau

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 Erlangen National High Performance Computing Center (NHR@FAU)