You can access NCI systems and services through a variety of methods. See below for more information about allocation schemes, virtual research environments, data services and more.
NCI provides access to computing, data and virtual environments through schemes allowing access to researchers from many different institutional and discipline backgrounds.
These include merit allocations schemes, collaborator schemes, a start-up scheme for new users and an industry access scheme. Please read below for further details about each scheme.
New and existing NCI users can register for an account or new project at our MyNCI portal.
If your organisation is interested in getting access to NCI capabilities, fill in this form.
Documentation about using and accessing supercomputer, cloud and data resources can be found in our User Guides.
This page covers the following methods for accessing NCI systems and services:
NCI Collaborating Organisations
Around 75% of NCI’s HPC resources are reserved for researchers at our collaborating organisations. These organisations generally distribute allocated HPC resources through internal processes.
If you are a researcher or employee at one of NCI’s collaborating organisations, contact your Scheme Manager to discuss gaining access to NCI services.
NCI Flagship Allocation Scheme
The NCI Flagship Allocation Scheme provides access to HPC, data-intensive and storage services at NCI for projects identified by the NCI Board as being of high-impact or national strategic importance.
The currently supported projects under the Scheme are:
- ARC CoE for Climate Extremes (CLEX)—led by the University of NSW, and involving The Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and the University of Tasmania;
- ARC CoE for All-sky Astrophysics in 3D (ASTRO3D)—led by the University of Sydney, and involving The Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, Swinburne University , the University of Western Australia, and Curtin University of Technology;
- ARC CoE in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies – led by Monash University in collaboration with UNSW, ANU, RMIT University, UQ, Swinburne and University of Wollongong
- ARC CoE in Exciton Science, linking the University of Melbourne, Monash University, RMIT University, UNSW and the University of Sydney.
Centres of Excellence determine their own allocations, with computing resources available only to researchers affiliated with the Centre.
Virtual Research Environments
NCI runs several different Virtual Research Environments, bringing together communities of researchers across multiple organisations to enhance collaboration on national and international science priorities. These Environments cover disciplines including climate and weather, geoscience, earth observation, astronomy and more.
NCI’s Virtual Laboratories are computational platforms making state-of-the-art analysis and visualisation tools easily accessible in an easy-to-use environment.
- For more information about each of the Environments and how to access them, visit Virtual Research Environments.
Data Services
NCI’s data services allow users, data portals and external science cloud environments to access, interact with and extract value from our data collections. Our data services provide a number of ways of interacting with data using a variety of programmatic methods.
Our data services include multiple data catalogues and specialised data servers, as well as virtual research environments suited to various communities.
For more information about each of the services and how to access them, visit Data Services.
Data Collections
NCI provides the research community vast, publicly funded data collections co-located alongside petascale supercomputing facilities. The NCI National Research Data Collection has more than 10 petabytes of curated and highly used reference datasets used for analysis at NCI and available more broadly through our data services. The fusion of NCI’s high-performance computing and data collections provides a data platform that enables new and innovative ways to access and use data.
You can browse the collections via the NCI GeoNetwork catalogue and through NCI data services. Certain datasets have restricted access and permission may be required from the data custodian through the contact details provided.
Commercial and Industry Access
Access to NCI facilities and services by commerce and industry is welcomed. Access is available on a Fee-for-Service basis. Please contact enquiries@nci.org.au for details.
