Since 2021 the federal ministry of education and research (BMBF) and the federal states in Germany fund the NHR alliance. Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) is founding member of the NHR association, together with eight more NHR centers. The NHR@ZIB operates a tier 2 high-performance computing system and thus it is a fundamental element in the national infrastructure of high-performance computing in Germany.

The compute systems of the NHR are devoted to researchers at German universities. The systems can be used in joint projects including international participants, too. Compute time projects are peer reviewed respecting scientific principles. The review process and the evaluation of the project capacity is done in the local scientific board (Wissenschaftlicher Ausschuss) of the NHR@ZIB. Project approval for large amounts of compute time are coordinated with the nationwide NHR scientific board (NHR-Nutzungsausschuss) of the NHR association.

One part of the scientific service of the NHR@ZIB is to enable the project scientists to use the NHR resource efficiently. The center offers advices in the application domains Life Sciences, Earth system science, chemistry, physics, engineering, social science and in the scientific computing domains artificial intelligence/machine learning and performance engineering. The service is embedded into a supra-regional and interdisciplinary network which connects on-site users, projects, and consultants during the whole lifetime of a project.

Moreover for high-performance computing research projects, education and advanced trainings are organized. These efforts are coordinate together with the other NHR centers and with the international community.