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).

Events

Brisbane Microscope Facility Forum

Monthly, UQ St Lucia

News

Building an ambitious new digital capability for Australian life science research

The Australian Bioinformatics Commons (BioCommons) is an ambitious new digital capability that will enhance Australian researchers’ ability to understand the molecular basis of life across environmental, agricultural and biomedical science.

QFAB hires two new recruits

Dr Tiffanie (Tiff) Nelson and Dr Farah Zahir have joined QFAB, QCIF’s bioinformatics arm—Farah as a biostatistician and Tiff in research community engagement for the Australian Bioinformatics Commons (BioCommons).

R user groups start at UQ and JCU

The University of Queensland and James Cook University both now have community user groups to provide support to those using R, a programming language for statistical analysis, data visualisation and more.

Winter School 2020 cancelled due to COVID-19

Due to the developing COVID-19 situation, the organisers of the Brisbane-based Winter School in Mathematical and Computational Biology 2020 have made the difficult decision to cancel the event this year.