Antarctic researchers will have access to cutting-edge computing infrastructure, as part of a new partnership between the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) and the Australian Research Special Research Initiative Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF).
The NCI is one of Australia’s leading high-performance data, storage and computing organisations, whose services and expertise enable high-impact research and innovation. It brings the Australian Government and the Australian research sectors together through collaborations between universities, science agencies, industry, and the Australian Research Council.
NCI’s Director, Professor Sean Smith welcomed the partnership as part of the NCI Flagship Allocation Scheme.
“We are delighted to be one of the key stakeholders of SAEF to provide cutting-edge technology to tackle the challenges that degradation of Antarctica poses to all of us. Our integrated hardware, services, and expertise aim to radically improve high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities available to Australians across all domains”.
Through the partnership, SAEF researchers will have access to up to 24 million service units (MSU) of computing time and 132 terabytes of data storage per year. The NCI will also offer technical support, training and workshops to support skill development in a field that is continuously advancing.
SAEF’s Biodiversity Theme Lead, Professor Melodie McGeoch from Monash University said the new NCI partnership will provide transformative computation power to SAEF researchers.
“Our scientists conduct a diverse range of data-intensive research, from climate and biodiversity modelling to genomics and bioinformatics. These computing resources will enable rapid advancement in our research and be vital to unlocking the knowledge we need to safeguard the Antarctic region.”