Terms and conditions of use of Empire AI resources

The following terms and conditions apply to all use of Empire AI resources.

1. Project principal investigators (PIs) are responsible for ensuring that all users associated with their project comply with these terms and conditions.
2. PIs and users conducting Artificial Intelligence (AI) or other research with Empire AI resources will maintain ethical and scientific integrity standards consistent with the policies of their member institution(s) under the larger umbrella of ethical research, and use Empire AI resources only for the approved project activities. 
3. PIs must be faculty or staff currently employed and/or appointed by a consortium member institution and domiciled in the US, and all users associated with a project must be officially and currently associated with a consortium member institution and domiciled in the US, as certified by the project PI and demonstrated via an institutional email address for each user, unless an exception is approved by the Empire AI Executive Director.
4. User accounts will not be shared, and individuals will not attempt to maintain multiple user accounts.
5. Remote access is prohibited from countries in the restricted country access list in order to comply with export control and other laws.
6. Papers and presentations reporting results obtained employing Empire AI resources should both acknowledge and cite use of Empire AI resources as described here.
7. A brief project report and 1-slide highlight are due one month after the end of an allocation period and are required for an additional allocation as described here.
8. Some information, including the project PI name, institution, department, project title, abstract, broader impact statement, and project reports and highlights, will be made public and might be used for reporting to the state and to promote Empire AI and consortium member institutions.
9. Data stored on Empire AI systems are the property of the PI and associated project, consistent with relevant policies of the member institution and associated funding agencies, and Empire AI will not claim any IP rights to this data.
10. While Empire AI follows national HPC cybersecurity best practices, our systems presently can only be used for non-confidential data and do not meet NIST requirements for controlled unclassified data. Support for HIPAA is planned for the near future, but is not presently available.
11. Empire AI will strive to ensure  the integrity of all user data, including retention of data beyond allocation periods as resources permit.  However, we reserve the right to remove data from our storage systems at any time without notice if misuse is detected, if directed by a funding or law enforcement agency or appropriate official from the user’s institution, or if the project PI fails to maintain an active allocation for an extended period. Also, while our storage is highly reliable, Empire AI presently performs no back ups and is not responsible for any data loss --- it is the users responsibility to back up their data as deemed necessary.
12. Users whose allocation has expired or been fully utilized will be notified by email that they have a 3 month grace period with access only to the free, low-priority, preemptible batch queues.  After one month without an additional allocation, they will be requested to reduce their data footprint to just their free 100GB home directory.  After an additional month, they and their PI will be notified that the user has one month to remove all data in their home directory before it and their account are removed automatically and without additional notice.
13. These terms and conditions may be intermittently updated without notice.
14. Failure to comply with these terms and conditions may result in suspension or termination of user access at any time without notice, and, as deemed appropriate, notification of any of the following: project PI, institutional representative, or applicable government or law enforcement agency.

Version dated 7/29/25.