This page explains the types of contracts available on our cloud service and how accounting works for each type of contract, along with the key differences between them.

Small Compute grants (NWO) 

Small Compute grants are intended for smaller research projects. Detailed information about this type of grant and how to apply can be found on this page.

With Small Compute grants (previously called "E-Infra"), usage on our cloud service is charged in CPU hours, GPU hours, and terabytes (TB) per month.

Each Small Compute grant provides your project with a maximum of:

    • 50.000 CPU hours
    • 5.000 GPU hours (if the nature of the project requires them)
    • 2 Terabytes of storage

With this grant, in your wallet, you will receive separate budgets for the requested CPU, GPU, and storage allocations. 

You can monitor your usage in the “Wallet” tab of the SURF Research Cloud portal. For more details, see the wallets documentation.

Large Compute grants (NWO)

Large Compute grants are intended for larger or longer-term research projects that exceed the limits of a Small Compute grant.

You can apply for a Large Compute grant via this link.

With Large Compute grants, we charge the usage on our cloud service in CPU hours, GPU hours, and TB per month. In the same way as with the Small Compute grant, you will receive separate budgets for the requested CPU, GPU, and storage allocations. 

There is no fixed maximum for resource requests, but you must clearly justify your computational needs in the grant proposal. 

You can track your usage in the “Wallet” tab of the SURF Research Cloud portal. For more details on how wallets work and how they vary by contract type, visit the wallets documentation.

RCCS contracts

RCCS contracts provide compute capacity to SURF member institutions for special tariffs.

If your institution does not already have an RCCS contract, you can arrange a custom agreement with SURF based on your project’s requirements.

Please contact your institution or SURF customer support for more information.

Conditions and pricing can be found on this page, which also includes a PDF document with detailed rates (go to the "Compute" RCCS-credits section and search for “HPC Cloud” within the document).

Credits bought via an RCCS contract may be used on both HPC Cloud and public clouds. Available public cloud providers depend on your institution’s agreement.

Accounting for RCCS contracts is done using credits, which differ from the accounting units used in Small and Large Compute grants. 

Credits are converted as follows:

  • 1,03 credits per CPU-hour 
  • 21 credits per GPU-hour
  • 681 credits per TB per month for HDD (external storage volumes)
  • 1,525 credits per TB per month for SSD (OS disks of workspaces)


Usage can be tracked in the “Wallet” tab of the SURF Research Cloud portal. For more details on wallets and how they differ by contract type, visit the wallets documentation.