EAGER: Accelerating Science Across Borders with Next-Generation SmartNICs/DPUs

NSF Award Search · 01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT · $300,000 · view on nsf.gov ↗

Abstract

This project enhances international exploratory research by strategically deploying next-generation SmartNICs, specifically Data Processing Units (DPUs), at four existing international FABRIC sites, which builds upon FABRIC Across Borders (FAB). DPUs are an emerging technology that places programmable, high-performance processors directly on the network interface, which can accelerate data processing by orders of magnitude by offloading data-centric tasks like networking, storage, and security from traditional CPUs and GPUs. DPUs also reduce time-to-insight for data-intensive scientific experiments across various domains and offer strong workload isolation for researchers, enabling secure networking and encrypted storage experimentation. By integrating SmartNICs into the FABRIC ecosystem, this project will accelerate exploratory data-intensive scientific research across multiple fields, including high-energy physics, federated learning, and wireless networking between the USA and the international sites. Scientific discovery in fields such as high-energy physics, smart cities, and AI-driven applications increasingly depends on the rapid movement and analysis of vast amounts of data. Traditional networking approaches often limit the pace of discovery, as server CPUs become bottlenecks for processing high-volume data streams. SmartNICs—programmable network cards equipped with dedicated processors—can offload and accelerate tasks such as encryption, data filtering, storage ma

Key facts

NSF award ID
2538792
Awardee
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC)
SAM.gov UEI
D3LHU66KBLD5
PI
Paul Ruth
Primary program
01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
All programs
EAGER
Estimated total
$300,000
Funds obligated
$300,000
Transaction type
Standard Grant
Period
10/01/2025 → 09/30/2027