University Centre for AI Computing (UCAIC)

UCAIC is one of the central facilities at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, providing computing resources — including GPU cards and cloud storage — to all eligible users. For more details, please visit:UCAIC.

To activate UCAIC services, please follow the steps below:

Step 1: New‑User Registration

All new users must complete and submit the New User Registration Form prior to submitting any resource request: New User Registration

Step 2: UCAIC Service Plan & Payment via URFMS

There are currently two subscription plans available for users of UCAIC. To access UCAIC’s computational resources, users should actively enroll in one of these plans. Delays in subscription may result to service interruptions or potential data loss. Therefore, users are strongly encouraged to choose a plan that aligns with their specific research needs and budget, and to schedule their subscription accordingly.

Basic Plan Subscribe Now

Fee: HKD 1,500 per quarter

Users can access resources from the Inspur 2018 cluster, including 200 GB HDD storage, HPC service*, non GPU Private Cloud Service, JupyterLab Online Service

GPU card model: NVIDIA Tesla P100 16G

Advanced Plan Subscribe Now

Fee: HKD 3,000 per quarter

Users can access resources from both the Inspur 2018 cluster and Lovelace 2024 cluster, including HDD and NVMe SSD storage, as well as GPU enabled virtual machine (GVM with 1 GPU card)** hosted on the Lovelace 2024 cluster.

GPU card models: NVIDIA RTX6000 Ada / L40S / RTX4090

The minimum commitment for both plans is one quarter. No additional fees will be incurred beyond your chosen plan. All subscription fees are non refundable.

Subscription coverage follows fixed quarterly cycles:

Q1: 1 January – 31 March
Q2: 1 April – 30 June
Q3: 1 July – 30 September
Q4: 1 October – 31 December

For example, a payment confirmed on 25 October applies to Q4 and the subscription expires on 31 December. Users may pre pay for one or multiple quarters. Please specify your intended service coverage period within the optional note field at checkout. All UCAIC service payments must be processed exclusively via the University Research and Facility Management System (URFMS).

Special requirements:

Longer term subscription: State the number of quarters you wish to subscribe.
Extra GPU capacity: Specify the number of additional GPU cards and target subscription quarter.
Multiple users: Each user shall submit an independent resource request under their own PolyU NetID.

Important Note: At checkout, please clearly state the PolyU NetID used in your UCAIC New User Registration Form and the subscribed service period within the optional note field. This ensures consistency between your URFMS subscription record and your UCAIC service account. If you use mixed funding sources, provide relevant details in the optional note field at checkout.
After payment is completed in URFMS, the UCAIC team will verify and confirm payment receipt. Service provision will not commence until payment receipt is confirmed.

Step 3: Account Creation and Confirmation

Once payment receipt is verified and confirmed by UCAIC, our admin team will cross check registration information and payment record for compliance.

Admin Audit

If information is inconsistent or incomplete: Your application will be suspended, and you will receive an email requesting supplementary information.
If compliant: The request proceeds to final internal validation.

After internal validation passes:

For subscriptions for the current quarter: Services will be provisioned within 3-5 business days upon receipt of payment.
For subscriptions for the upcoming quarter: Services will be activated on the first day of the target quarter. For example, if payment is confirmed on 3 September, service will go live on 1 October.

A confirmation email will be sent to your official PolyU email address once service is activated. You may then log in and access UCAIC resources using your PolyU NetID.

University Centre for AI Computing (UCAIC)

UCAIC Service Subscription