National Computational Infrastructure

The National Computational Infrastructure (also known as NCI or NCI Australia) is a high-performance computing and data services facility, located at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. The NCI is supported by the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), with operational funding provided through a formal collaboration incorporating CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, The Australian National University, Geoscience Australia, the Australian Research Council, and a number of research intensive universities and medical research institutes.
The current director is Professor Sean Smith.
Computer systems.
As of June 2020, NCI operates two main high-performance computing installations, including:
Data services and storage.
NCI operates the fastest filesystems in the Southern Hemisphere. 20 Petabytes of storage is available for fast I/O, 47 Petabytes is available for large data and research files, and 50 Petabytes is available on tape for archival.
Research.
Research conducted or under way includes:
History.
NCI Australia is a direct descendant of the ANU Supercomputing Facility ANUSF, which existed from 1987 through to 1999. At the turn of the new millennium, the Australian Government pushed ahead with a process to form the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC), the foundation of which would be built around a new national computational infrastructure. With its heritage in supercomputing, it was decided that the APAC National Facility would be located at The Australian National University, with the facility ultimately commissioned in 2001.
In 2007, APAC began its evolution into the present NCI collaboration.
The below table is a comprehensive history of supercomputer specifications present at the NCI and its antecedents.