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History

NCI can trace its lineage back through three stages of the evolution of high-end computing services in Australia.

These are:

• The Early Years: The initiation of high-performance computing services through the Australian National University Supercomputing Facility (ANUSF) from 1987;
• The APAC Years: Its extension to a national role under the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC), hosted by ANU from 2000– 07, during which national HPC service was provided from ANUSF, a national partnership was formed, services were broadened to include a range of outreach activities to build uptake, and a national grid program, and nascent data services were established.
• The NCI Years: The current stage of advanced computing services that have been developed from 2007 onwards under the badge of NCI, again hosted by ANU, which are characterised by the broadening and integration of services, the evolution of a strong sustaining partnership, and the transition from high-terascale to petascale computational and data infrastructure to support Australian science.

Before describing this evolution under the relevant headings below, it is interesting to characterise this growth in capacity and capability in a single figure (below) which displays the evolution in HPC capacity over 25 years in Australia.

Summary of the Growth of Capability of HPC Systems at NCI (and antecedents) from 1987