The National Science Foundation (NSF) is showing an active interest in cloud computing; how cloud computing power can solve the major technological problems in scientific research? NSF recently partnered with a non-profit group called as Internet2. Internet2 is a computer networking group and the combined project is named as Exploring Clouds for Acceleration of Science (E-CAS).

The project is designed to examine how researchers can leverage big data and cloud computing resources? NSF is already contributing $3 million towards the project. The cloud providers for the project are Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform.

Manish Parashar, the director of NSF added that “People are really excited to see the journey and adoption process. With any new, disruptive trend there would be a learning curve along with a change in the current process.”

Under the first phase of E-CAS, it would involve allocating cloud resources to six research proposals after that two proposals will be selected to see if the cloud could be able to accelerate the scientific discovery. The cloud access point is a broader push within the NSF to bring cloud capabilities to researchers. NSF is looking to bring new disruptive technology the first step is taken with cloud access program.