Under the agreement, the organisations will exchange staff for work on specific projects of mutual interest with the goal of sharing and furthering the scientific and technical know-how of both institutions. Both centres share a common technological focus, having selected Crax XT supercomputers as their primary systems after thorough review of various systems.

The MOU, signed in January 2008, capitalises on the the organisational and operational similaritites of the Swiss and United States computing centres.