VPAC Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing

VPAC Info Page

VPAC, the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing, is a partnership of seven Member Victorian Universities (Ballarat, Deakin, La Trobe, Monash, Melbourne, RMIT, and Swinburne), the Victorian Government, and APAC (www.apac.edu.au). VPAC will be incorporated and a Director is being sought ( www.rmit.edu.au/departments/hr/sr/pds.html). The annual budget is projected to be $6M AU per annum, and funds have been committed for 3 years at this level. VPAC will have a central State HPC Facility (for which EOI's have been sought), but much of VPAC's operations will be at Member locations. The State HPC Facility will house a large cluster computer (budget ~ $1M), a Technical Diffusion program, and a Strategic Applications Collaboration program. VPAC will have an Education and Expertise Program, as part of APAC's national program in these areas. VPAC's Expertise program will initially have two major focuses: Cluster Computing and Computational Engineering.

VPAC will also fund HPC support at Member locations (a fraction of each Member's contribution to VPAC will be returned to members). VPAC will also have access to APAC's Peak HPC Facility, to be located at the ANU. A tender for this Peak Facility has been negotiated, and it should be installed commencing 1st quarter 2001. Its peak performance is estimated to be in excess of 1Teraflop.

VPAC programs: Expressions of Interest

• Access to Peak Facility EOI
• Education Program EOI
• Expertise Program EOI
• Employment Opportunities at VPAC
• Funding for Support of HPC programs at members