Australia's Supercomputers Face Uncertain Future Without $2 Billion Investment: Inquiry
Australia’s two national supercomputers are running out of capacity and risk being replaced by weaker machines or shut down unless the government commits about $2 billion (US$1.4 billion) over the next decade, a parliamentary committee has been told.
TL;DR
- Australia's two national supercomputers, Setonix and Gadi, are nearing capacity limits.
- A proposed 10-year national program requires an estimated $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion in government funding.
- Current demand for computing power on these supercomputers is 2.9 times greater than available capacity.
- The replacement for Gadi will be less powerful than its predecessor due to rising component costs driven by the AI boom.
- Australia is significantly behind countries like South Korea and Singapore in acquiring advanced GPUs for research.
- Concerns exist that commercial computing centers are not optimized for all scientific computational needs, and data transfer costs can be prohibitive.