Frontera's queues close permanently on October 1st, 2026
The Texas Advanced Computing Center's Frontera user guide carries a warning. The queues close permanently on October 1st, 2026 after seven years of running. Users will still reach Frontera's file systems to transfer data off. Frontera is funded by the National Science Foundation through award 1818253 and the guide calls it the largest cluster dedicated to open science in the United States. The successor is Horizon. It is funded through the Leadership Class Computing Facility award. Horizon's own guide carries a notice dated in July saying it is still limited only to internal users. That guide also says it is in progress. Horizon lists three ways in. They are the facility's own allocations and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot and the state's allocation system.
How to take part
The center publishes both user guides itself. A researcher can read the closing date and the access rule rather than infer either one. Horizon's guide names the three allocation routes a request would go through. Anyone with work on Frontera reaches the center through its own portal and its ticket system.
Where
1 county. In Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos.
Timeline
- ordered
The Frontera user guide's own last update, carrying the closure warning. This is the date the closure is recorded on the deciding body's own page.
- effective
Frontera queues close permanently
- Today
How this decision moved
One dated line per check, oldest first. A line that says nothing changed means somebody looked and it had not.
- 2026-09-07
Admitted. The center's own Frontera guide, last updated September 3rd, 2026, says the queues close permanently on October 1st, 2026 and that the file systems stay reachable for moving data off. The successor machine's guide, last updated August 12th, 2026, still carries a notice dated in July saying it is limited only to internal users.
- 2026-09-10
Frontera's queues are still scheduled to close permanently on October 1st, and the notice to users still reads as it did. No extension has been announced.
- 2026-09-13
Checked and unchanged. The decision still stands as decided.
- 2026-09-16
The Frontera queues still close permanently on October 1st. No reprieve and no extension has been published.
- 2026-09-19
The machine's queues still close permanently on October 1st, 2026, and no reprieve has been published.
- 2026-09-23
Whether the decommission notice still reads as it did is unconfirmed this run. The queues are still dated to close on October 1st on the record as it stands.
- 2026-09-24
The decommission notice still dates the end of the queues to October 1st, now a week away. Nothing posted since pushes it back.
- 2026-09-26
Frontera's decommission notice still ends the queues on October 1st, and nothing posted since moves that date.
- 2026-09-27
The center's user guide still gives October 1st as the day Frontera's queues close for good.
- 2026-09-28
With the closing date close, the user guide still carries the notice unchanged, and Horizon is still described as limited to internal users.
- 2026-09-29
Whether the user guide still gives October 1st for the end of Frontera's queues is unconfirmed. The closing notice on the page has changed since the last reading, and the new wording has not been read.
- 2026-09-30
Whether Frontera's queues still close on October 1st is unconfirmed. The user guide could not be read, and no other published notice of the closing was found.
- 2026-10-01
Whether Frontera's queues closed on October 1st as scheduled is unconfirmed. The center's user guide sits on a site that bars automated readers, and no other published notice of the closing has been found.
- 2026-10-02
Whether Frontera's queues closed as scheduled is still unconfirmed. The center's user guide sits on a site that bars automated readers and no other notice of the closing has been found.
- 2026-10-03
Whether Frontera's queues closed on schedule is still unconfirmed. The center's user guide sits on a site that bars automated readers, and no other notice of the closing has been found.
- 2026-10-04
Whether Frontera's queues closed on schedule is still unconfirmed. The center's user guide sits on a site that bars automated readers.
- 2026-10-05
Whether Frontera's queues closed on October 1st as scheduled is still unconfirmed. The center's user guide sits on a site that bars automated readers.
- 2026-10-06
Whether Frontera's queues closed for good on October 1st is still unconfirmed. The user guide that set the date sits on a site that bars automated readers.
- 2026-10-07
Whether Frontera's queues closed for good as scheduled is still unconfirmed. The center's user guide sits on a site that bars automated readers.
- 2026-10-08
Whether Frontera's queues closed for good as scheduled remains unconfirmed. The supercomputing center's pages are still off limits to automated readers.
- 2026-10-09
Whether Frontera's queues closed for good as scheduled remains unconfirmed. The center's pages still bar automated readers.
- 2026-10-10
Whether Frontera's queues closed for good on schedule stays unconfirmed. The center's pages bar automated readers.
The evidence
Every fact above rests on one of these. The words are the source's own.
After seven years and billions of computing cycles, Frontera will be riding off into decommission sunset. On October 1, 2026, the Frontera queues will be closed permanently. You will still be able to access Frontera's file systems to transfer any data needed.TACC HPC Documentation, Frontera User Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
Frontera is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through award #1818253, Computing for the Endless FrontierTACC HPC Documentation, Frontera User Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
Frontera is the largest cluster dedicated to open science in the United States and is the Texas Advanced Computing Center's latest flagship system.TACC HPC Documentation, Frontera User Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
Horizon is still limited only to internal users. (07/24/2026)TACC HPC Documentation, Horizon User Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
This user guide is in progressTACC HPC Documentation, Horizon User Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
Horizon is a National Science Foundation-funded system that is part of the the Leadership Class Computing Facility (LCCF) award, Award Abstract #2323116TACC HPC Documentation, Horizon User Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
All AI-assisted workloads must be executed on compute nodes onlyTACC HPC Documentation, TACC Good Conduct Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
All Service Units (SUs) consumed by AI-related workloads will be charged against your allocation.TACC HPC Documentation, TACC Good Conduct Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
Failure to follow these guidelines will result in degraded access to TACC resources or administrative action to protect system stability.TACC HPC Documentation, TACC Good Conduct Guide Primary source, official · docs.tacc.utexas.edu
Questions about this decision
Answered from the record itself. Every answer is assembled from stored fields, so an answer the record has no basis for is left out rather than guessed.
What is this decision?
The Texas Advanced Computing Center's Frontera user guide carries a warning. The queues close permanently on October 1st, 2026 after seven years of running. Users will still reach Frontera's file systems to transfer data off. Frontera is funded by the National Science Foundation through award 1818253 and the guide calls it the largest cluster dedicated to open science in the United States. The successor is Horizon. It is funded through the Leadership Class Computing Facility award. Horizon's own guide carries a notice dated in July saying it is still limited only to internal users. That guide also says it is in progress. Horizon lists three ways in. They are the facility's own allocations and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot and the state's allocation system.
Who decides it?
Texas Advanced Computing Center, The University of Texas at Austin decides. The record names the deciding body for every entry it carries.
Can the public take part?
The center publishes both user guides itself. A researcher can read the closing date and the access rule rather than infer either one. Horizon's guide names the three allocation routes a request would go through. Anyone with work on Frontera reaches the center through its own portal and its ticket system. No dated public window is on the record. The deciding body is named and reachable.
Where in Texas does it apply?
It covers Travis County in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX area.
Has it been decided?
It has been decided. The dates on the item page carry when.
What happens next?
No future date is on the record. The last dated step on it was effective on October 1st.
When did it start?
The earliest date on its record is September 3rd, 2026.
What kind of decision is it?
It is filed under research and science.
What sources back it?
Three sources back it. Three of them are primary.
Is it on the ERCOT grid?
Yes. It sits inside the ERCOT interconnection.
When was it last checked?
Every fact on it was last verified against its source on September 28th, 2026.
Cite this
Texas AI Docket, Frontera's queues close permanently on October 1st, 2026. Tracked since September 3rd, 2026. Last verified September 28th, 2026. https://texasaidocket.com/item/tx-2026-0125/. Reuse permitted under CC BY 4.0 with attribution. The same entry is in the docket JSON as item tx-2026-0125.
Beat
Filed under Research and science, with every other decision on that beat.