Perth supercomputer to unlock universe’s secrets

The Pawsey Centre supercomputer, to be installed at the Perth site, will be focused on supporting the data-intensive science to be carried out using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescopes, as well as supporting other research areas including geosciences, nanotechnology and biosciences.

The value of the supercomputer purchase represents $33m of the $80m Australian Government SuperScience initiative to establish the Pawsey Centre. Two smaller supercomputing systems have already been established at Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia and the construction of the data centre to house the new petascale supercomputer is already underway at the Australian Resources Research Centre (AARC) in Kensington, WA.

The installation of the supercomputer will occur in two phases scheduled for June 2013 and June 2014. iVEC and the CSIRO will manage the installation of the systems.