New Multimillion Supercomputing Institute planned for Wales
High Performance Computing (HPC) Wales is an ambitious project to build a globally recognised high-performance computing capability across Wales, providing an enabling technology and building a skills base to support research and development projects that deliver significant benefits across the Principality and beyond.
HPC Wales will provide a regional strategic, underpinning, and cross-cutting technology for researchers to collaborate nationally and internationally with a range of both academic and private sector partners on an open, collaborative and multidisciplinary basis. Such an environment will promote the delivery of high-impact, user-valued, research outputs that have significant economic impacts.
The Welsh Assembly Government was successful in the funding bid to the UK Strategic Investment Fund for HPC Wales, and in December 2009 it was announced by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) that £10m had been secured. Further funding bids are under development to ensure this project is of a scale to provide a truly world-class open innovation platform for high performance computation and informatics.
Specific requirements to make this innovative project viable are:
World class HPC capacity - Wales will be building on the expertise and facilities in HPC already established in Swansea and Cardiff Universities. Cardiff and Swansea will provide Hubs linking to Tier 1 Spokes in Aberystwyth, Bangor and Glamorgan Higher Education Institutes, who all form part of the Saint David’s Day Alliance Group of research focused Universities. There will be further Spokes in the University of Wales Alliance Group of Universities and in the Welsh Technium facilities, providing a pan Wales hub and spoke network. The network will provide a new enhanced over-arching regional structure, with network links to be formed with other UK HPC initiatives.
HPC capability will not in itself deliver sustainable value to the economy and therefore the establishment and development of an HPC Institute is a key objective, designed to deliver advanced research. The role of the research universities and their international linkages is critical.
The purpose of the HPC Institute will be to develop educational provision and training at all levels, building capacity and skills base to operate and take forward the optimal usage and development of High Performance Computing and super computing technology and solutions in the public and private sectors. HPC Wales will offer a range of opportunities, including skills-development activities, training packages and consultancy services. Short-term internships will also support two-way knowledge transfer and create stronger links between this innovative initiative and the industrial community.
Committed to a ten year development programme, HPC Wales promises to establish strong foundations for the future, providing flexible ways to adapt to changing technologies and skills requirements.
The Welsh secretary Peter Hain was strongly supportive of the initiative, adding that “HPC Wales will give firms access to supercomputing resources and also offer consultancy services and tailored training packages to enhance workforce skills.”
Super Computing and HPC have grown year on year and some of the most successful global companies are suppliers of super-computing capacity, such as Intel, Microsoft, HP and IBM. There is a recognised and growing HPC global community and these major global companies continue to grow and profit even in the current economic climate, reflecting growing demand both from industry and academia for HPC capacity.
It is expected that HPC Wales will create more than 400 new jobs across the digital, low-carbon, heath, bio-science, engineering and advanced manufacturing sectors, with the majority in highly skilled technical and scientific fields such as image processing, animation and 3D visualisation. In turn it will also enhance collaborative research across these sectors and attract business with a requirement for computational skills and access.
