Hon Dr Wayne Mapp
Minister of Science and Innovation

4 February 2011
Media Statement

Supercomputer network to power research

The Government is investing in a network of high-performance computers to keep New Zealand researchers at the cutting edge of science.

Over the next four years the Government will invest more than $27.4 million in the National eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) network. It will be made up of linked supercomputers and associated services such as software and data storage.

“NeSI will power research that will deliver on the Government’s top priority – growing the economy,” Science and Innovation Minister Wayne Mapp said today.

“This investment will improve New Zealand’s society and environment. All New Zealand researchers will have access to the computers and the support needed to use them.

“Modern science requires increasingly powerful computers to tackle increasingly complex problems. NeSI will make it easy for researchers to store, access and share data, enabling more collaborations and bigger research projects,” he said.

“NeSI will have a very wide range of applications, ranging from designing high-tech devices through to areas such as gaining a better understanding of brain diseases and fine-scale weather prediction.”

Access to these services will be prioritised to areas supporting the Government’s agenda for economic growth.

Some of New Zealand’s top research organisations are co-funding NeSI, adding nearly $21 million over four years to the Government’s investment. They are the Universities of Auckland, Canterbury and Otago, and Crown research institutes NIWA, AgResearch and Landcare Research.

The institutions will work together to build NeSI, which will include both new and existing high-performance computing hardware and services.

NeSI will use the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN), which provides extremely high capacity broadband to research and education organisations, and some government institutions.

The Government is also increasing funding for KAREN. From 2013/14 it will put an extra $4m a year towards KAREN’s operating costs.

ENDS

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