Subscription Plan

URF's Free Access for newly appointed APs and RAPs (1st year)

As part of a RIO initiative effective from 1 November 2023, all newly appointed Assistant Professors (APs) and Research Assistant Professors (RAPs) at PolyU are eligible for one-year free access to all centrally managed research equipment operated by the University Research Facilities (URFs) at PolyU.

If the Principal Investigator (PI) is an eligible AP or RAP under this initiative, they should contact RIO and submit the relevant documentation to claims a full waiver. Upon approval, RIO will then create a special payment source within the University Research and Facility Management System (URFMS) for their research-related usage accordingly. Please note that claims for waived access cannot be made retrospectively after the Financial Office (FO) has settled the payment from project accounts. All matters related to payment and wavier claim processing are handled by RIO and FO - not by the UCAIC.

UCAIC Service Access and Subscription Plan

Step 1: New‑User Registration

All new users must complete and submit the New User Registration Form prior to submitting any resource request: New User Registration 

Step 2: UCAIC Service Plan & Payment via URFMS

There are currently two subscription plans available for users of UCAIC. To access UCAIC’s computational resources, users should actively enroll in one of these plans. Delays in subscription may result to service interruptions or potential data loss. Therefore, users are strongly encouraged to choose a plan that aligns with their specific research needs and budget, and to schedule their subscription accordingly.  

• Basic Plan

Fee: HKD 1,500 per quarter

Users can access resources from the Inspur 2018 cluster, including 200 GB HDD storage, HPC service*, non GPU Private Cloud Service, JupyterLab Online Service*

 *GPU card model: NVIDIA Tesla P100 16G

• Advanced Plan

Fee: HKD 3,000 per quarter

Users can access resources from both the Inspur 2018 cluster and Lovelace 2024 cluster, including HDD and NVMe SSD storage, as well as GPU enabled virtual machine (GVM with 1 GPU card)** hosted on the Lovelace 2024 cluster.

**GPU card models: NVIDIA RTX6000 Ada / L40S / RTX4090

The minimum commitment for both plans is one quarter. No additional fees will be incurred beyond your chosen plan. All subscription fees are non refundable.

Subscription coverage follows fixed quarterly cycles:

• Q1: 1 January – 31 March
• Q2: 1 April – 30 June
• Q3: 1 July – 30 September
• Q4: 1 October – 31 December

For example, a payment confirmed on 25 October applies to Q4 and the subscription expires on 31 December. Users may pre pay for one or multiple quarters. Please specify your intended service coverage period within the optional note field at checkout. All UCAIC service payments must be processed exclusively via the University Research and Facility Management System (URFMS).

Special requirements:

• Longer term subscription: State the number of quarters you wish to subscribe.
• Extra GPU capacity: Specify the number of additional GPU cards and target subscription quarter.
• Multiple users: Each user shall submit an independent resource request under their own PolyU NetID.
  

Log in to URFMS and settle service payment using the payment source assigned by your PI.

Important Note: At checkout, please clearly state the PolyU NetID used in your UCAIC New User Registration Form and the subscribed service period within the optional note field. This ensures consistency between your URFMS subscription record and your UCAIC service account. If you use mixed funding sources, provide relevant details in the optional note field at checkout.

After payment is completed in URFMS, the UCAIC team will verify and confirm payment receipt. Service provision will not commence until payment receipt is confirmed.

Step 3: Account Creation and Confirmation

Once payment receipt is verified and confirmed by UCAIC, our admin team will cross check registration information and payment record for compliance.

Admin Audit

• If information is inconsistent or incomplete: Your application will be suspended, and you will receive an email requesting supplementary information.
• If compliant: The request proceeds to final internal validation.

After internal validation passes:

• For subscriptions for the current quarter: Services will be provisioned within 3-5 business days upon receipt of payment.
• For subscriptions for the upcoming quarter: Services will be activated on the first day of the target quarter. For example, if payment is confirmed on 3 September, service will go live on 1 October. 

A confirmation email will be sent to your official PolyU email address once service is activated. You may then log in and access UCAIC resources using your PolyU NetID.

PI's Free Rackmount Servers and GPU-cards Hosting Policy

The Rackmount Servers and GPU-cards Hosting Services are offered free of charge with the exception of the mandatory "Deep Security License", which is charged by ITS at HKD.500 per year per host server. UCAIC will handle all administrative, system-monitor and maintenance duties on half the project owner and their parent department, ensuring reliable and secure hosting.

The service is part of a broader initiative led by the founder Director Prof. CAO Jiannong (VPEDU) to better leverage University human resources in supporting high-performance computing infrastructure. Where needed, UCAIC can offer assistance in drafting tender specifications that align with requirements of the PolyU ITS Data Center (P404) and UCAIC's network interface standard. Price quotations from vendors can also be facilitated upon request. 

All hosted servers will be installed at the ITS Data Center P404, and integrated into UCAIC’s network, including security and firewall protections.

For further information or to request hosting arrangement, please contact with our scientific officer Dillian Wong (dillian.wong@polyu.edu.hk)