The University of Queensland and the Queensland Government today (12/8/2003) signed a major agreement to acquire one of the most powerful supercomputers in Australia.
The State government is investing $4.5 million from its Smart State Research Facility Fund to help establish the Australian Computational Earth Systems Simulator (ACcESS) (pronounced "access").
ACcESS is a $15 million new Major National Research Facility headquartered at UQ.
It is expected to provide a quantum leap in the way we understand our planet and how it works. Potential outcomes of the facility are improved ability to forecast earthquakes and locate mineral deposits.
The Minister for Innovation and Information Economy, Paul Lucas, said most importantly ACcESS will mean an extra 40 to 50 jobs for Queensland.
“As well as increased prestige and international recognition for our well deserving science community,” Mr Lucas said.
“This project was one of the first to receive funding under the Smart State Research Facilities Fund, and I’m delighted that partners such as SGI are also firmly behind this national research facility.
“This supercomputer will place ACcESS firmly in the global spotlight as a leader in earth systems simulation and will allow them to link with other earth simulator facilities around the world.”
UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay congratulated the Queensland government on supporting the facility, which is led by Professor Peter Mora, Director of the Earth Systems Science Computational Centre at The University of Queensland.
"This facility is part of the clustering of major infrastructure at UQ, such as the recently opened $105 million Queensland Bioscience Precinct. These facilities are helping attract new industries to the State and lure to Australia some of the best scientific minds on the planet," he said.
Professor Hay said the ACcESS simulator facility had received bipartisan support, also attracting $4.8 million in the Federal Government`s Major National Research Facilities round in 2001.
UQ will use the funding to purchase a latest technology SGI Altix supercomputer system equipped with 208 of Intel`s new Itanium II processors. This computer is capable of over 1 million million (ten to the power of 12) operations per second making it among the fastest in the nation.
Professor Peter Mora said the facility was expected to provide a never-before-seen predictive capability for complex earth processes.
"This will help underpin a new era of predictive minerals discovery, mining technology and software innovations, and environmental forecasting of natural hazards such as earthquakes," he said.
"Like the global climate supercomputer models that are revolutionising prediction of climatic change, the earth systems simulator models will revolutionise prediction of solid earth processes."
Over the past five years, Queensland has been established as a leader in computational earth systems science through a forefront research program established by Professor Mora. He developed the ACES international cooperation and more recently, the ACcESS Major National Research Facility. The ACES international cooperation involves partners worldwide such as NASA JPL, Tokyo University, and Peking University amongst some 40 others.
Media: Further information, Jan King 0413 601 248.
