June 4, 2018 — The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre and the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE), yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to promote the use of supercomputers to the progress of scientific and technological outcomes, and to stimulate the industry sector both in Australia and Europe.

PRACE is an international non-profit association, with 25 member countries. Its representative organisations create a pan-European supercomputing infrastructure, providing access to computing and data management resources and services for large-scale scientific and engineering applications at the highest performance level for scientists and researchers from academia and industry in Europe.

PRACE and Pawsey share the complexity and international nature of the science areas that each organisation supports, the need to provide services to researchers who are spread across different time zones and the requirement of on-demand access to compute power for a scientific instrument.

The collaboration seeks to promote research and development in the field of Computational Science and Engineering, targeting exchange of information in three areas; training, industrial usage of High-Performance Computing (HPC), and the link between HPC and scientific instruments. The partnership also commits to identify opportunities to improve the operational efficiency of each of the parties, and to provide enhanced support for globally distributed research teams.

The signing ceremony took place during the European HPC Summit Week 2018 in Ljubljana; signed by Ugo Varetto, Pawsey’s Acting Executive Director, and Serge Bogaerts, PRACE Managing Director.

Ugo Varetto said the agreement is another step toward creating alliances making Pawsey a world-leading, iternationally recognised supercomputing facility.

“We are pleased to be the first Centre outside of Europe to collaborate with PRACE at this level,” said Ugo.

“Pawsey’s connection with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, one of the great scientific instruments of our time, is an incredible challenge in which to be involved. This is the type of project that represents an opportunity to learn and to contribute to.” Ugo continued “With this MoU, Pawsey is seizing another opportunity to share experiences and also learn from our peers.”

“PRACE is proud to add this MoU to its existing list of co-operations with international peer organisations, and we are looking forward to expanding on this positive start to connect the HPC ecosystems of Europe and Australia,” added Serge Bogaerts.

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 the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE)

The Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) is an international non-profit association with its seat in Brussels. The PRACE Research Infrastructure provides a persistent world-class high performance computing service for scientists and researchers from academia and industry in Europe. The computer systems and their operations accessible through PRACE are provided by 5 PRACE members (BSC representing Spain, CINECA representing Italy, ETH Zurich/CSCS representing Switzerland, GCS representing Germany and GENCI representing France). The Implementation Phase of PRACE receives funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (2014-2020) under grant agreement 730913.

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Source: Pawsey Supercomputing Centre