This challenge is open to USHE researchers and educators. Lead proposers must be from one of these institutions and can only be the lead on one proposal. Lead proposers can be non-lead team members on other project proposals and collaborative effort is considered a strength. Project teams can include other academic, industry, or community partners. To ensure that the selected projects are both impactful and can maximize this high-performance AI resource quickly during the early access period, proposals should demonstrate the following:  

• Challenge and Impact: Proposals should clearly articulate the challenge being addressed and the potential research and/or societal impacts that the project aims to achieve via Redtail's unique AI capabilities and scale.
• Project Readiness: Projects should be mature enough to take rapid advantage of Redtail with potential assistance of AI Engineers and CHPC facilitators as appropriate. Early-stage ideation or exploratory projects are not ideal for this call.
• AI Experience: The proposing team must demonstrate experience working with AI tools and systems relevant to the project being proposed. Experience working with high-performance computing (HPC) environments is helpful but not required.
• AI-Ready Data: Proposals should demonstrate that any datasets that will be used as part of the project are fully prepared, cleaned, and AI-ready at the time of application.  

Proposals must include the following sections: 

1. Project Abstract (Max 250 words): A concise summary of the AI challenge and its expected research or societal impact. 
2. Project Description (Max 3 pages including references): Project description should include the following: 
   • Challenge: Describe the core challenge to be addressed, the goals and objectives, and how it would be uniquely enabled through the specific capabilities of Redtail. 
   • Technical Requirements and Readiness: Describe as specifically as possible the:
     1. Computational and data requirements for the project, and the software and AI tools that will need to be provisioned by the Redtail operations team,
     2. the team’s prior AI and HPC experience, and
     3. the readiness of the data, models, and tools that the proposers will be bringing to the project, as appropriate. 
   • AI Engineer and CHPC Facilitation: Indicate if and how your team would need to utilize AI Engineers and CHPC Facilitators for the project, including any bottlenecks they would be asked to assist in solving and what level of effort is expected throughout the project duration (up to 6 months). 
   • Targeted Outcomes: Clearly define what this project will produce to achieve the specific objectives for research and/or societal impact. This should include how the outcomes will be disseminated, including artifacts such as a journal article, a federal grant proposal, or a publicly available open-source model.

• All team members must be identified, including their institutional affiliations and email addresses. Timely responsiveness in communications is expected; all team members will be included in award notifications. 
• Resources must be used in a timely and appropriate manner consistent with project goals and University policies. The University of Utah reserves the right to cancel or modify access to specific team members or the entire project. 
• The project lead will be expected to provide a report on their project progress and user experience.  
• Teams are expected to appropriately engage with communications teams, e.g., for public websites and other communications, and relevant events and activities across Utah.

Project leads and team members will become part of a Redtail user group and be given opportunities to contribute, exchange, and build the larger enablement program.

Projects will be selected based on the following criteria: 

• Challenge Impact & Significance: Does the project address an ambitious research, education and/or real-world issue of societal benefit for Utahns?
• Clarity: Does the project clearly articulate the challenge aims, desired outcomes, and impact? 
• Readiness: Is there evidence that the project’s data is AI-ready and the team has a clear understanding of the requirements for their proposed project?  

Technical assessment: 

• Feasibility: Can proposed project realistically leverage the AI Factory capabilities and within the allowed timeframe?  
• Support assistance: Is there a clear and appropriate plan to leverage AI Engineers and CHPC Facilitators, if needed? 

Review and Decisions 

• Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and selection decisions are targeted to be made within two weeks of submission.
• Final decisions will be made by the Redtail AI Factory challenge leadership with the assistance of a review committee in consideration of above criteria, technical feasibility, and broad enablement goals.
• Those not selected as part of this first challenge call will remain under consideration for allocation during the full operations phase.