Canberra, Tuesday 15 May 2001

National Facility for Advanced Computing opens at ANU

The APAC National Facility will be officially opened at The Australian National University, in Canberra Today (Tuesday 15 May) by the Federal Education Minister Dr David Kemp.

The Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) is a national partnership involving consortium partners in each State as well as ANU and CSIRO. The ANU is delighted to be the host of the National Facility in Canberra.

"APAC will provide a substantial boost to the scientific and technical computing capacity for Australian researchers," APAC Executive Director Professor John O'Callaghan said. 'The new Compaq computing system at the National Facility is the largest in Australia. It is expected to be among the 60 most powerful computer systems in the world when the international top 500 list is updated later this year".

"And the National Facility is not just about fast machines … there's a mass storage system for holding massive amounts of data. To give some idea of the size, the storage system is capable of storing several hundred thousand full length movies - or all of the books in the National Library".

The National Facility began operations at the end of April. More than 300 researchers from around Australia are expected to use APAC in the next few months. Some of their applications are:

o Studying the porous flow of fluids for the recovery of oil from underground reservoirs
o Analysing the complex folding patterns of proteins to help design drugs
o Simulating turbulent flow for more efficient jet engines
o Imaging the Earth through seismic data processing
o Developing new techniques to combat credit card fraud

What: Opening of the APAC National Facility by Federal Education Minister Dr David Kemp

Where: Sir Roland Wilson Building, McCoy Circuit, Australian National University, Canberra

When: 10.30am, Tuesday 15 May, 2001

For further information contact: Professor John O'Callaghan, APAC Executive Director, on W (02) 6125 9800, M 0419 413 148 or email john.ocallaghan@apac.edu.au
or Clarissa Thorpe, Media Liaison Officer, on W: (02) 6125 5575, M 0416 249 245

No: 43/2001

© 2000 Marketing & Communications Division,
The Australian National University.
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Last Modified Tue, July 16, 2002