National Computational Infrastructure (NCI)

The challenge

Modelling complex systems requires heavy-duty computing

Climate models are a key tool for understanding our climate and how it is changing now, and the primary tool we have for projecting future changes in climate.

They are based on physical and mathematical laws, and are able to represent a range of the physical, chemical and biological interactions and feedbacks that make up our climate system. These models are complex so they require a great deal of computing power to run.

Our response

A world-class national computing facility

NCI is Australia’s national research computing service, providing researchers with access to advanced computational and data-intensive methods, support, and high-performance infrastructure.

NCI offers:

• high-performance computing services, including petascale computing infrastructure and petascale persistent data storage
• cloud services
• data services
• scientific visualisation
• virtual laboratories, such as CWSLab.

NCI operates as a formal collaboration between The Australian National Research University, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia, together with partnerships with a number of research-intensive universities, supported by the Australian Research Council.

NCI is supported by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

The results

Science to inform decisions for the future

The more we know about our climate, the better prepared we’ll be to respond as it changes.

NCI gives our researchers access to the information and infrastructure necessary to carry out world-leading climate research, and so to provide governments, businesses and communities the information they need to make decisions about the future.

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Raijin, NCI's peak high-performance computing system.  ©National Computational Infrastructure

Raijin, NCI's peak high-performance computing system.  ©National Computational Infrastructure