Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2018-10-16
Buyer: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) — Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Country: UK
Contract type: Supplies
CPV classification: 30211100
Estimated value: 40000000 GBP

Technical requirements: Summary: EPSRC, as managing agent for the national HPC facility on behalf of the other research councils, is looking to tender contracts for 3 elements of the Archer 2 facility in 2019: the hardware (to be based in Edinburgh); the service provision which manages academic access to the facility and the helpdesk; and the Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) support which provides software development and training and support to users of the facility to enable their codes to run as effectively as possible. The hardware element of the Archer 2 service will provide the compute resource, maintenance and support including storage and network connectivity to provide enhanced provision of HPC hardware for academic scientific research. Procurement is provisionally estimated to commence in Jan 2019 with issue of a contract notice. Estimated costs including VAT and all applicable duties and taxes: 48 000 000 GBP.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council manages the Archer supercomputer service on behalf of the High Performance Computing (HPC) scientific user communities.
This multi-million pound investment, which commenced service in 2013, provides national capability for scientific research across the HEI sector requiring access to high performance computing resources. Supporting a community of academic researchers across the UK, Archer provides a prestigious national Tier 1 compute resource for scientific endeavour. As provider of the national HPC service supporting researchers in diverse scientific fields, EPSRC currently manages the provision and support of the Archer service. A future capital investment will secure the next generation of HPC service and ensure provision of new HPC architecture capable of addressing the demands of increasing complexity in scientific research.
The overall vision for Archer 2 is to build on the existing Tier 1 and Tier 2 investments in national HPC facilities so that the UK is a recognised leader on the international scene for computational science and engineering. In order to achieve this, UK researchers must be able to carry out internationally competitive research across the remits of EPSRC, NERC and beyond. The benefits of the UK being world leading in computational science and engineering will be realised through:
— the increased ability of UK researchers to make valuable contributions to the solution of complex scientific challenges and to the generation of quality scientific outputs,
— increased attractiveness of UK researchers as partners in high profile international collaborations and improved access to large HPC resources in other
EPSRC, as managing agent for the national HPC facility on behalf of the other research councils, is looking to tender contracts for three elements of the Archer 2 facility in 2019: the hardware (to be based in Edinburgh); the service provision which manages academic access to the facility and the helpdesk; and the computational science and engineering (CSE) support which provides software development and training and support to users of the facility to enable their codes to run as effectively as possible. The hardware element of the Archer 2 service will provide the compute resource, maintenance and support including storage and network connectivity to provide enhanced provision of HPC hardware for academic scientific research. Procurement is provisionally estimated to commence in Jan 2019 with issue of a contract notice. Estimated costs including VAT and all applicable duties and taxes: 48 000 000 GBP.
If you are interested in receiving further information regarding this requirement please provide contact details, company name and nature of interest to Allan Evett (allan.evett@uksbs.co.uk) or Laura Lewis (laura.lewis@uksbs.co.uk) Please reference “UKSBS PR17125 Archer 2 Hardware” in your initial contact email.
Please note, there will be a period of pre-market engagement as part of this procurement. To obtain copies of draft procurement documentation and to be part of this pre-market engagement, please see further details at Section VI: Complimentary Information.
Both pre-market engagement and the following procurement exercise will be run via the Crown Commercial Service’s e-Sourcing Suite (Emptoris). Component suppliers and potential bidders for the service provision and computational science and engineering services are welcome to register to obtain copies of draft procurement documentation. Component suppliers should raise any questions arising from the documentation via a prime bidder.
To participate in this tender participants shall first be registered on the e-Sourcing Suite. If Bidders have not yet registered on the e-Sourcing Suite, this can be done online at https://gpsesourcing.cabinetoffice.gov.uk by following the link “Register for CCS eSourcing”. Please note that, to register, Bidders must have a valid DUNS number (as provided by Dun and Bradstreet) for the organisation which you are registering, who will be entering into a contract if invited to do so.
Note: registration may take some time please ensure that you allow a sufficient amount of time to register.
Full instructions for registration and use of the system can be found at http://ccs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/i-amsupplier/respondtender
Once you have registered on the e-Sourcing Suite, a registered user can express an interest for a specific procurement. This is done by emailing ExpressionOfInterest@ccs.gsi.gov.uk
Your email must clearly state the name and reference for the procurement you wish to register for (for this pre-market engagement the reference is UKSBS PR17125ME Hardware).


Award value: 40000000