HPC

The term high performance computing (HPC) is usually associated with computing used for the purpose of scientific research. HPC uses parallel clusters of supercomputers – computers with the highest processing capacity for super-fast calculation speeds.

Supercomputers are used in situations where data sets are too large to be run on common desktop PCs and software applications. The supercomputers are clustered so that two or more computers can serve a single source, thus improving performance and providing redundancy in case of system failure.

QCIF machines are available to researchers across all scientific fields and disciplines but are most commonly used in the areas of engineering, medicine, manufacturing, and resource management.

HPC and research support services are available to all staff and HDR students and are designed to enhance research outcomes and productivity in the following areas:

  • High-speed computation, including the use of high performance supercomputing systems
  • Visualisation tools that allow scientific, engineering and other data sets to be transformed into 2D/3D visual representations
  • Programming support for research applications, including code paralellisation and optimisation
  • Statistics and data modelling.

Get an Account

High performance computing facilities are located at each of the QCIF member partners. If you are a staff member or student at UQ, QUT, Griffith, JCU, CQU or USQ, please contact your institution's HPC/eResearch department initially:

HPC@UQ   HPC@QUT  HPC@Griffith  HPC@JCU  HPC@CQU  HPC@USQ

National Computational Infrastructure

QCIF holds a share of the NCI facility. This entitles QCIF members to access time on the supercomputer at the NCI and use about 3.4 million service units annually (SU, a service unit, is approximately one CPU hour).

Queensland researchers can use NCI's supercomputer either by applying directly to NCI for an allocation of time under the NCMAS scheme (a merit allocation scheme) or by applying for an allocation from QCIF’s partner share.

Please apply for QCIF's share via the application form on the QRIScloud portal. (Please note: if you are a first-time user of the portal, you will be asked to create an account before you can create the request).