The Commonwealth Government is providing $26 million towards Australia’s newest research supercomputer to be hosted at the Australian National University (ANU).
Senator for the ACT, Kate Lundy welcomed the facility, officially launched today by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr and operated by National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), an initiative of the Commonwealth Government.
The Government funding of $26 million (over four years) comes under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. Substantial co-investment has also been secured by a number of partner organisations, including ANU and CSIRO.
“This is fantastic news,” Senator Lundy said.
“Australia’s best researchers – in all disciplines – will benefit from access to this truly world-class supercomputer.”
The new supercomputer will allow researchers to test ideas using computer simulations that would not be possible to test in the lab, and enable the construction of complex models that just cannot be developed without these facilities.
When it is fully up and running in January 2010, the system will provide a ten-fold increase in performance over its predecessor, providing Australian researchers with an internationally significant system.
The Government is providing a further $130 million for high performance computing, including an additional $50 million for NCI, under the Super Science initiative in the 2009/10 Federal Budget.
Media contact: Annika Hutchins (Senator Lundy) 0407 458 882 or (02) 6230 0411 (Office)
