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Research computing, data, analytics & reporting

Research computing

The University of Wollongong offers Partner Share access to Australia’s fastest supercomputer, Gadi, as part of the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Collaboration Agreement.

There are three schemes available to UOW researchers (staff and HDR students).

  1. UOW Partner Share. In conjunction with our partner, NCI, UOW is granted an annual allocation of compute time and storage on Gadi. This serves as the university’s computational cluster and is managed by the RSO on behalf of the HPC Steering Committee.

UOW researchers are also encouraged to apply for competitive time on NCI resources:

  1. Adapter. This is offered quarterly for a maximum of 250KSU per quarter. (Temporarily discontinued 2024)
  2. NCMAS. This is offered once a year – deadline is generally at the beginning of October. There is a minimum of 1000KSU per year available.

Detailed information is found in the below knowledge base article (for UOW staff and students only).

KB: High-Performance Computing (HPC) Information and Support

Access and support

For new and existing projects

  • Applications are welcome, and are governed by the UOW HPC Steering Committee.
  • Requests for access are initially reviewed by the HPC Steering Committee Chair and the Research Services Office
  • They are endorsed by the full HPC Steering Committee at meetings throughout the year
  • Proposed projects must be led by an established academic staff member (post-doc equivalent or higher)

Getting Started on Gadi

Before getting started on the Gadi supercomputer, you must create an RDMP for your project on RedBox. (If you do not need to store any data, you may skip this step but note we will need to see your RDMP before you are allocated any storage in the future).

Once you have an RDMP, the next steps are:

Project roles and researcher eligibility

Upon registration, the following eligibility guidelines apply:

The roles detailed below should be read in conjunction with the role definitions listed at: NCI Definitions: Commonly Used Terms

Lead CI

  • Must be fixed term or continuing staff member
  • Can only have one project (For academics supervising multiple HDR students, one project can be shared among them)
  • Should be the HDR supervisor of the HDR students listed in the roles of “Researcher”/”Delegated Lead CI”/”Chief Investigator”

Delegated Lead CI

  • Can be an HDR student or fixed term or continuing staff member
  • Make this the HDR student if the Lead CI does not access the project on Gadi regularly

Chief Investigator (CI) and Researcher 

  • Can be HDR student, fixed term or continuing staff member or honorary/visiting fellow or casual staff member

NCI provides some useful documentation about working in the Gadi environment – some links to note include:

UOW Partner Share compute and storage requests

Q4 2023 - 29 September 2023
Q1 2024 - 22 January 2024
Q2 2024 - 27 March 2024
Q3 2024 - 26 June 2024
Q4 2024 - 25 September 2024 

NCI Adapter Scheme

(Temporarily discontinued 2024)
Q4 2023 - deadline has passed
Q1 2024  - not announced yet, likely opening beginning October 2023, with a deadline of end of October 2023

NCI NCMAS Scheme

Important Dates for 2025 
8 October 2024 - Applications open
31 October 2024 - Applications close at (8:00pm AEDT / 5.00 pm AWST)
5-6 December 2024 - Scientific Advisory Committee meeting for allocations
6 January 2025 - Allocations announced

Operational HPC support requests (e.g. queue issues, compilation failures, application/library installation requests etc.) are processed by our support partner, NCI.

With thanks to the artist

Artwork

Gadi

"to search for" in Ngunnawal language, January 2020 for NCI Gadi Supercomputer

Artist

Lynnice Letty Church

Tribes

Ngunnawal, Wiradjuri & Kamilaroi (ACT and NSW)

Contact the Research Services Office

(02) 4221 3386 research-services@uow.edu.au
Looking for someone in particular? Meet the research services team