HPC Australia

HPC Australia
Name	HPC Australia
Type	National research infrastructure consortium
Location	Australia
Established	2007
Predecessor	Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing
Services	High-performance computing, storage, cloud, visualization, training

HPC Australia is an Australian national high-performance computing consortium that provided supercomputing resources, support, and training to researchers, industry, and educators across Australia. Originating from earlier initiatives in distributed computing and national research infrastructure, the consortium coordinated access to petascale-class systems and regional clusters, enabling projects in computational science, bioinformatics, geoscience, and climate research. Its activities intersected with national research bodies, universities, and international facilities to deliver shared compute, data, and expertise.

History

HPC Australia grew from earlier Australian initiatives including the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing, the National Computational Infrastructure (Australia), and state-based consortia such as the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing and the Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation. Key milestones included funding rounds tied to the Australian Research Council and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, coordinated procurement influenced by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation procurement frameworks and advice from advisory groups that included members from the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, University of Queensland, and Monash University. The consortium evolved through ties with international centers such as PRACE and the XSEDE partnership in the United States, drawing on lessons from the TeraGrid program and aligning with standards promoted by the Open Grid Forum and the GLUE Schema. Major refresh cycles saw collaborations with vendors who supply systems to institutions like the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre and the Australian Synchrotron, and engagement with national policy dialogues involving the Department of Education (Australia) and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (Australia).

Organization and Governance

Governance structures mirrored models used by consortia such as UK Research and Innovation and the European Grid Infrastructure, with boards populated by representatives from universities including Australian National University, University of Western Australia, and research agencies such as the CSIRO. Operational management drew on best practice from centers such as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with advisory committees including representatives from domain communities—e.g., life sciences groups at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, earth science teams at the Geoscience Australia agency, and engineering departments at RMIT University. Funding and strategy were influenced by grant programs run by the Australian Research Council and policy instruments from the National Innovation and Science Agenda. Access policies incorporated peer review models similar to those used by National Science Foundation allocations and mechanisms like those at Compute Canada and NCI Australia.

Infrastructure and Services

The consortium provisioned shared compute systems, parallel filesystems, cloud platforms, and visualization nodes comparable to infrastructures at Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, National Computational Infrastructure (Australia), and international peers such as EuroHPC. Services included batch scheduling with middleware used by centers like Argonne National Laboratory, data management modeled after The European Organization for Nuclear Research, and specialized software stacks employed by groups at CSIRO and major universities. Resource types spanned CPU clusters with interconnects similar to those from vendors serving Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, GPU partitions used in projects akin to those at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and large-capacity storage akin to deployments at Australian Synchrotron and Monash eResearch Centre. User support encompassed helpdesks, consultancy teams, and training aligned with workshops from Software Carpentry, tutorials patterned after PRACE Training Centre activities, and community forums adopted from Stack Overflow-style knowledge bases.

Research and Education Programs

Programs supported computationally intensive research in domains represented by institutions such as CSIRO, CSIRO laboratories, University of Tasmania climate groups, and biomedical teams at Garvan Institute of Medical Research. Education outreach mirrored initiatives at Australian Research Data Commons and university eResearch offices, offering internships, summer schools, and coursework integration similar to programs at University of New South Wales and University of Melbourne. Training collaborations included curriculum aligned with Software Carpentry and competency frameworks advocated by Australian Council of Learned Academies, enabling capacity building in parallel programming, data-intensive computing, and workflow management used in projects at The Australian National University and clinical research at Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Collaborations and Partnerships

Partnerships spanned universities such as University of Sydney, University of Adelaide, and Curtin University, research agencies like Geoscience Australia and CSIRO, and international organizations including PRACE, XSEDE, and EuroHPC. Industry links involved technology vendors active at facilities such as Pawsey Supercomputing Centre and collaborations with companies engaged with the Australian Space Agency and energy sector partners. Cooperative agreements resembled arrangements between Compute Canada and provincial partners, and memoranda of understanding were modeled after international exchanges between National Computational Infrastructure (Australia) and counterparts like Riken and Argonne National Laboratory.

Impact and Notable Projects

The consortium enabled high-impact projects across domains: climate modeling studies related to Bureau of Meteorology (Australia) work, genomic analyses at centers like the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, and materials simulations paralleling efforts at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. Notable outcomes included publications in venues such as Nature, Science, and domain journals; contributions to national capability similar to investments in the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre; and training outcomes feeding staffing pipelines for institutes including CSIRO and major universities. Collaborative projects intersected with national programs like the Australian eResearch Infrastructure initiatives and international campaigns coordinated through Global Earth Observation System of Systems frameworks.

Category:Supercomputing in Australia