About the bid

Assignment description

The purpose of this Invitation to Tender is to procure the Acquisition, delivery, installation and maintenance of hardware and software of CASPIr Supercomputer for a 5-year operational period, with an option for an additional one (1) year extension. The Supercomputer will be jointly owned by the University of Galway and the EuroHPC JU and will be operated by ICHEC in support of the National Advanced Computing service for Ireland as well as the relevant EuroHPC Access calls. The system is to be hosted in a secure co-location data centre facility in Ireland. The intended role of the CASPIr Supercomputer is to provide:  A new EuroHPC mid-range supercomputer hosted in Ireland and integrated within the EuroHPC ecosystem  The next supercomputer to underpin the National HPC Service operated by ICHEC in support of Irish researchers  A richer and more capable, data centric modular compute environment to address the broader data management and complex workflow requirements of Irish and European researchers  A reliable, secure production platform on which high availability services can be operated for academic, public sector and SME customers  A training and development platform to enable researchers to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to scale up their HPC, AI and Data processing workflows towards the larger more specialist systems within the EuroHPC ecosystem.Main features of the procedureThe Contracting Authority will employ a competitive dialogue procedure for the award of this Framework. As the authority is considering innovative solutions, it has chosen to use the Competitive Dialogue Procedure in achieving this objective due to the technical difficulties envisaged. Stage I – Qualification (this Stage) 1. Interested parties are invited to complete the separate Qualification Questionnaire (Appendix A) and to submit it before the specified deadline. In order to be considered for participation in the competition, applicants must in the first instance meet the selection criteria and rules set out in the Qualification Questionnaire. 2. Responses to the Questionnaire will be assessed in accordance with the selection criteria, weightings and minimum rules summarised in Appendix 1 of this document. It is envisaged that a maximum of four (4) scoring applicants (subject to the number and quality of applications received) that also meet the minimum requirements will be invited to participate in the Dialogue stage. The Contracting Authority reserves the right to invite a smaller or larger number to the Dialogue stage, depending on the quality of submissions and the proximity of scores. Stage II – Dialogue Stage 3. A Descriptive Document will be issued with the invitations to participate in the Dialogue Stage to the chosen participants. This will provide more detailed information about the elements of the required solution, the format of the conduct of the Dialogue Stage and the applicable award criteria. 4. The chosen participants will be invited to provide a preliminary proposal in advance of attending the first dialogue meeting. 5. The purpose of the dialogue is to allow participants to develop their proposed solutions in response to the Contracting Authority’s objectives. The dialogue may take place in one or more phases to allow for the refinement of solutions. The number of participants in each dialogue round may be successively reduced by applying some or all of the published award criteria, in accordance with the public procurement rules. 6. The solutions proposed by participants and the confidential information communicated by them in the course of the competitive dialogue procedure will be held in strict confidence and not revealed to any other parties without express permission, subject always to legal obligations. Similarly, all participants in the competition are required to treat all of the information provided by the Contracting Authority during the process as confidential. Stage III - Formal Tendering 7. After the termination of the dialogue phase, all participants offering solutions which are deemed to fulfil the requirements will be invited to submit formal tenders based on the solutions presented by them during the dialogue phase. Those who do not qualify for the tender stage will be formally notified of the reasons for their rejection. 8. Tenders received will then be assessed on foot of the published requirements, the award criteria and weightings. Those tenders may be clarified, specified and optimised at the request of the Contracting Authority. Following evaluation, negotiations with the tenderer identified as having submitted the best tender may be carried out.

Contact information

Contact phone

091 524411

Contact email

ann.melia@universityofgalway.ie

Address

University Road, Galway, H91TK33 Galway

Found no award criteria in the contract notice.

Found no qualification requirements in the contract notice.

See the full notice