April 5, 2018 — The National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore, and the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate in the fields of supercomputing, networking, data analytics, scientific software applications and visualisation.
Pawsey and NSCC have worked together to sign an MOU that will underpin the beginning of the two Centres’ collaboration to deliver better, faster and more innovative scientific outcomes for the benefit of both nations.

The signing ceremony took place last week at the Resorts World Convention Centre, Sentosa, Singapore, as part of SupercomputingAsia 2018 (SCA18).

The two supercomputing centres will collaborate in areas such as strategy, best practice and shared experiences in planning, defining, administering, and supporting industry engagement, outreach activities, training and stakeholder management. Governance matters on resource access and sharing, resource allocation, export control, infrastructure accreditation; user support tools and methods; HPC software development and cybersecurity will also be considered.

The two supercomputing hubs are located in the world’s most heavily populated time zone. This international initiative will drive deep and interactive dialogues for both centres, thus allowing a good flow of knowledge transfer to occur between the two neighbouring nations. This will in turn benefit the HPC community within each country.

Both parties have plans in the pipeline which include joint initiatives to optimise researchers’ activities, such as training and code optimisation.

“The proximity of the two facilities, similarities in storage solutions, but mostly creative thinking approach to problems, have driven Pawsey’s interest in crystallising this relationship with NSCC” said Mr Ugo Varetto, Pawsey Acting Executive Director. “We are convinced that this type of initiative will enhance the services each Centre provides, therefore researchers and their outcomes will be impacted. By working together, we aim to continue accelerating scientific discoveries in these two nations for the benefit of humanity”.

Professor Tan Tin Wee, NSCC’s Chief Executive added, “With our national petascale HPC platform, NSCC’s collaboration with international supercomputing centres such as the Pawsey, will benefit and bring together people and researchers with different skillsets and expertise to solve problems of a scale previously not possible.”.

Pawsey hosted a booth as part of SCA18, which is the first achievement of this engagement between the supercomputing hubs.

This is the first international agreement entered into by the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. It is expected that before the end of the year the Centre will engage in more international alliances, to provide improved services to the Australian research community.

About Pawsey Supercomputing Centre

The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre is a world-class high-performance computing facility representing Australia’s commitment to the solution of Big Science problems. The facility provides researchers across the country, access to one of the largest supercomputers in the Southern Hemisphere. Pawsey is currently serving over 80 organisations and achieving unprecedented results, in domains such as radio astronomy, energy and resources, engineering, bioinformatics and health sciences.
The Centre is focused on providing integrated research solutions by giving users simultaneous access to world class expertise and infrastructure in supercomputing, data, and visualisation services.

The Centre is funded by the Western Australian State Government and the Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

About National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore

The National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore was established in 2015 and manages Singapore’s first national petascale facility with high performance computing (HPC) resources to support science and engineering computing needs for academic, research and industry communities. Funded by its stakeholders, including Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), with substantial funding from the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), NSCC aims to democratise access to supercomputing. NSCC works with local and international organisations to catalyse collaborative HPC projects and programmes which support national research and development initiatives, attract industrial research collaborations and enhance Singapore’s research capabilities.

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Source: Pawsey Supercomputing Centre