NSF Reassigns NCAR Supercomputer to New Operator; Judge Temporarily Blocks Move

A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary injunction preventing the National Science Foundation from transferring stewardship of a supercomputer housed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, while a lawsuit proceeds.

The order came after the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research filed suit challenging the agency’s plan to explore moving the machine to a different operator.

The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center supports climate modeling, severe-weather prediction, air-quality forecasting, and studies of solar effects on Earth systems. UCAR, a nonprofit consortium of 129 universities that manages NCAR, filed the suit naming the NSF, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Commerce, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to court filings cited in reporting, Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled that the NSF had offered no explanation for the transfer decision and failed to follow its own process for public comment. The judge found a public interest in keeping the machine at NCAR because it supports data collection used to mitigate extreme weather events.

UCAR Interim President Eric Barron said in a written statement: “Our work supports national security, public safety, and economic prosperity, and any steps made toward divesting NCAR of its high-performance computing facilities would risk disrupting the country’s extraordinary advances in weather and space weather modeling and forecasting.”

The NSF declined to comment on the ruling. The Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Commerce, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have not issued statements.