Our Role

NCI was established in June 2007 under an agreement between the Australian National University (ANU) and the Commonwealth Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (Department of Innovation) to:

• provide high-end, capability computational services, to the Australian research community,
• advise the Department of Innovation on further investments in the national computing fabric for specialised systems that can support high-end computing requirements in particular application areas,
• operate a community based merit allocation scheme that grants access to NCRIS-funded resources,
• provide advisory and support expertise to research communities benefiting from NCRIS computational infrastructure investments, and
• develop national strategy for the advancement of computational infrastructure in Australia.

In addition to the planning, access and outreach activities, these objectives highlight the three operational functions of NCI:

• NCI National Facility, which provides the national peak computing system for capability computing,
• Specialised Facilities, that provide access to high-end computing resource that complement the National Facility in its support for particular research communities and their applications,
• Specialised Support, which provides specialised support for a small number of research communities and which also explores new computational paradigms and technologies.