$70m in funding for Pawsey Supercomputing Centre

The Australian Government has announced $70 million in funding to replace infrastructure at Perth’s Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. This investment will enable Pawsey to continue to drive innovation and accelerate discoveries in medical science, engineering, geoscience, marine science, chemistry, food, agriculture and more.

Pawsey is one of two facilities that make up Australia’s High Performance Computing research capability, and is used by businesses to create and test new concepts and improve existing processes and products. For example, Pawsey’s supercomputers help improve combustion in supersonic engines and model the physics of extreme waves to capture energy. The centre also plays an integral role in the collection and use of data generated by the Australian Square Kilometre Array (SKA) pathfinder telescopes.

The new funds will be used to procure a replacement for Pawsey’s flagship supercomputer, Magnus, as well as real-time supercomputer Galaxy, as both systems are close to the end of their operational lives. Magnus, a Cray XC40, is considered to be one of the most advanced supercomputers in the Southern Hemisphere. Galaxy is meanwhile dedicated to the operational requirements of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescopes.

Pawsey currently serves more than 1500 active researchers from across Australia, involved in more than 150 supercomputing projects to deliver scientific outcomes. This new phase will see Pawsey’s 45 members of staff continue to engage with researchers to identify their needs, which will inform the configuration of the next systems. The procurement process for the capital refresh will commence immediately, with the intention of new infrastructure being available from 2019.

“The investment in Pawsey will have a positive impact on the Australian research community,” said Pawsey’s Acting Executive Director, Ugo Varetto. “The centre has already been accelerating scientific outcomes and will now be able to solve even bigger scientific problems.

“It is an exciting time to be at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre.”

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