What is HUBzero?
HUBzero, the web-based software platform for scientific collaboration, has returned to Purdue University. The platform's infrastructure is hosted on resources at the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing (RCAC), and after a brief transition period, HUBzero is now live and in production at Purdue once more.
HUBzero is an open-source software platform for building powerful science gateways that host analytical tools, publish data, share resources, facilitate collaboration, and foster community building within a single web-based ecosystem. Initially developed by Purdue researchers as the Purdue University Network Computing Hub (PUNCH), it later evolved to be the platform known today as nanoHUB.org, and then generalized to the HUBzero platform and applied to dozens of science gateways using the platform.
From 2019 to 2025, HUBzero was operated out of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and returned to being led by Purdue in July 2025, back to where it all began. This move will help Purdue build upon its leadership in cyberinfrastructure for FAIR data, AI, and digital twins, and will lead to improvements in HUBzero as advancements made by Hubs at Purdue are made available to other Hubzero-based gateways.
Why HUBzero?
HUBzero is the platform to use for communities engaged in STEM. Collaboration is a defining feature of HUBzero. The platform enables users to create an environment where researchers, educators, and students can access simulation tools and share information. Anyone in a hub's user community can utilize and contribute software which runs remotely on RCAC resources. Tools need not be installed on home computers, as everything on HUBzero is accessible via a web browser. A list of features and benefits of HUBzero includes:
- Researchers and students can connect applications, visualizations, and models to computing resources through a reliable and easy-to-use web platform.
- Peers can share research codes and receive a persistent interoperable identifier, a digital object identifier (DOI).
- Researchers, educators, and students can share knowledge and ideas in interactive spaces.
- Users can host interactive virtual learning opportunities for students and professionals.
- The platform provides open access to research products, community resources, curated curriculum, and more.
Each site that utilizes the HUBzero infrastructure is standardized with built-in user support features, statistics about users and usage patterns, and integrations with Google Drive, GitHub, and Dropbox. They also include interactive simulation tools, a simulation tool development area (including source code control and bug tracking), a Groups and Projects space for team collaboration and community building, an online course feature offering video seminars and animated presentations, and mechanisms for uploading and sharing resources.
HUBzero is the ultimate platform for scientific collaboration and education. With its return to Purdue, HUBzero is poised to continue delivering state-of-the-art resources to researchers and students, epitomizing the university's persistent pursuit of innovation.
HUBzero is a trademark of the Purdue Research Foundation. HUBzero's development has been supported by the US National Science Foundation through awards EEC-0228390, EEC-0634750, OCI-0438246, and OCI-0721680, and by Purdue University.
RCAC operates all centrally maintained research computing resources at Purdue University, providing access to leading-edge computational and data storage systems as well as expertise and support to Purdue faculty, staff, and student researchers. To learn more about HPC and how RCAC can help you, please visit: https://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
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nanoHUB
An open and free online platform for computational education, research, and collaboration in nanotechnology, materials science, and related fields. nanoHUB provides modeling and simulation tools and educational materials to the world to have impact in education and research. Also powered by nanoHUB, Chipshub is the online platform for everything semiconductors. The platform extends nanoHUB's success to deliver both open-source and commercial software that supports a semiconductor community through workforce development at scale.
The Purdue University Research Repository (PURR)
Provides an online, collaborative working space and data-sharing platform to support Purdue researchers and their collaborators.
MyGeoHub
A geospatial science gateway that supports the geospatial modeling, data analysis, and visualization needs of the broad research and education communities through hosting of groups, datasets, tools, training materials, and educational content.
cdmHUB
The Composites Design and Manufacturing HUB (cdmHUB) is a collaborative web interface platform developed to host the simulation tools needed to advance composite materials design, certify product integrity, simulate manufacturing solutions, and accelerate the talent base of composite materials developers and users.
Communityhub
Purdue's IT division collaborates with many research groups across campus and around the world to develop and host science gateways and online communities.
Ghub
This science gateway offers datasets, workflows, and tools to unify ice sheet observations and modeling, provide uncertainty quantification, and improve estimates of future sea level rise.
PlantingScienceHub
PlantingScience is a Student-Teacher-Scientist partnership that was founded in 2005 by the Botanical Society of America. This innovative program facilitates mentoring relationships with real plant scientists and teams of 3-5 students in 6th-12th grade classrooms. Through asynchronous online conversations, the scientists provide support and encouragement as students design and carry out a plant-focused scientific investigation in the classroom.
The goals of PlantingScience are shown in this diagram.
PlantingScience is a free online resource to teachers and schools. The program provides volunteer scientists, resources, and activities to support innovation in teaching, learning, and mentoring. Open Education Resources are shared for student-centered plant investigations that integrate scientific practices and big ideas in biology that meet the guidelines in the Next Generation Science Standards.
Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES)
The QUBES platform, a BioQUEST project, is a social cyberinfrastructure that provides an open and inclusive virtual space for sharing STEM classroom activities and resources, discussing teaching and the adaptation of educational materials to specific institutional contexts, and working together to develop new ideas and insights that contribute to STEM education reform.
Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG)
The science gateway for NCSA's Delta supercomputer CIG develops and disseminates community-accessible software for the geodynamics research community. CIG software supports a variety of geodynamic research from mantle and core dynamics, to crustal and earthquake dynamics, to magma migration and seismology. CIG is a community-driven organization that is committed to developing and maintaining the geodynamics community through community participation across this research spectrum. CIG provides:
- Reusable, well-documented geodynamics software that keeps pace with developments in computational technology;
- Software building blocks for geodynamics from which state-of-the-art modeling codes can be effectively assembled;
- Strategic partnerships with the larger world of computational science and geoinformatics to ensure best practices in developing community-specific tool kits for scientific computation in solid-Earth sciences;
- Specialized training and workshops and other community activities for both the geodynamics and larger Earth Science communities.