Science and Innovation Minister Paul Goldsmith has announced an investment of $31.7 million to upgrade New Zealand’s NeSI supercomputing capabilities (NeSI).
“The existing supercomputers are at the end of their operating lives and energy intensive by today’s standards. The new supercomputers will deliver up to 10 times the computing capability and more than four times the storage capacity of their predecessors,” says Mr Goldsmith.
NeSI is a collaborative partnership between the University of Auckland, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, the University of Otago, and Landcare Research. It is a virtual organisation developing advanced computation and analytics capabilities across the science sector and delivering underpinning computing and data infrastructure.
The computing research service is designed and provided by the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI), a collaboration between NIWA, Landcare and the Universities of Auckland and Otago.
The new, enhanced supercomputing platforms’ 33,500 cores will deliver up to 12 times the computing capability and more than four times the storage capacity of their predecessors, integrating three supercomputers around data intensive storage and extending this with virtualised laboratories and visualisation pipelines. The primary infrastructure will be located at NIWA in Wellington with a new replicated data infrastructure at the University of Auckland’s Tamaki Data Centre providing data resilience.
“Computational needs of the science community are growing exponentially and from a range of key areas from natural hazards and climate science, through to computational chemistry, astronomy, and biomedical research,” Mr Goldsmith says.
“There are also a number of key government science initiatives that require computational support including the National Science Challenges, Centres of Research Excellence and the genomics platform.”
New Zealand currently has two supercomputers available to the research community, FitzRoy, based at NIWA’s Greta Point, Wellington site, and Pan, based at the University of Auckland.
They will be superseded by three supercomputers, with replacements for Fitzroy and Pan at NIWA in Wellington, and a smaller back up computer for NIWA housed at the University of Auckland’s Tamaki Data Centre.
“This new investment will significantly enhance New Zealand’s ability to meet the growing demands of the scientific research community and help them to tackle some of the issues crucial to our country’s future prosperity,” says Mr Goldsmith.
