PSC Neocortex

Free allowance: Free wafer-scale accelerator time on Cerebras CS-3 systems, allocated through the NSF ACCESS programme: 'There is no cost to use Neocortex for non-proprietary research.' Eligibility is explicit and institutional: 'Projects must be non-proprietary.
Verdict: fails: identitythe identity required is not reachable without it
Cost: free tier
Identity: institutionno card, no phone
Binding limit: write-gateda PI at a US academic or non-profit institution plus a reviewed ACCESS allocation request, so identity fails before any quota does.
Evidence: documented3 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
Freshness: stale on 2026-11-22checked 2026-10-22 (live); stale on 2026-11-22

Free tier	Free wafer-scale accelerator time on Cerebras CS-3 systems, allocated through the NSF ACCESS programme: 'There is no cost to use Neocortex for non-proprietary research.' Eligibility is explicit and institutional: 'Projects must be non-proprietary. Applicants must be a researcher or educator at a US academic or non-profit research institution. A principal investigator (PI) is required. PIs may not be a high school, undergraduate or graduate student; a qualified advisor must serve in this capacity.' unit none; metered on wall-clock; allocation
Price	none stated
Limits	write-gated (binding) a PI at a US academic or non-profit institution plus a reviewed ACCESS allocation request, so identity fails before any quota does. source
Identity	institution not published
Egress	not stated
Interface	unknown inferred from the tooling the provider documents; not probed
Tooling	not stated
Composes with	The allocation is the only route to a CS-3 that does not involve a purchase, and it chains with publishing the result. It breaks for a user at the PI requirement, which no amount of preparation substitutes for.
Reliability	no reliability event recorded
Notes	The allocation size is null: ACCESS awards vary and no node-hour figure is published on the page read. The Argonne route is a second door on the same class of hardware with the same institutional gate.
Parsed numbers	has-free-tier 1

Evidence 3

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-22	www.psc.edu/resources/neocortex/allocations/	'Applicants must be a researcher or educator at a US academic or non-profit research institution. A principal investigator (PI) is required. PIs may not be a high school, undergraduate or graduate student', quoted
2026-10-22	www.psc.edu/resources/neocortex/	'There is no cost to use Neocortex for non-proprietary research', quoted, with proprietary work routed to a Corporate Affiliates programme
2026-10-22	www.alcf.anl.gov/alcf-ai-testbed	the same accelerator appears at Argonne as a Cerebras CS-3 with 24 nodes, 'Available through an allocation request'

More fields 1

facets	`{"class": "national-programme","free_tier_kind": "allocation","shape": {"vcpu": null,"ram_gib": null,"gpu_class": "Cerebras CS-3 wafer-scale engine, 2 nodes","gpu_count": 2}}`

Unknown values 7