With the launch of a dedicated RMIT Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Supercomputing (RACE) Hub, RMIT researchers will be able to more easily process huge volumes of data in less time.
From simulating and visualising how to create a brain-like computer chip to understanding how light interacts with molecules, our researchers at the Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre rely heavily on high performance computing to carry out their work.
The unique challenge is that the team needs scalable computing infrastructure, or computing power, that can expand and contract when the task demands it. This is currently unavailable and as a result, dramatically slows down analysis.
To help with processing large data sets, RMIT has become the first Australian university to implement a dedicated commercial cloud supercomputing facility: RMIT Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Supercomputing (RACE) Hub.
The RACE Hub will allow researchers and students within RMIT’s industry hubs – including our Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre – to access scalable computing infrastructure
Associate Professor Thach Nguyen
Our Simulation and Design Team Leader, Thach Nguyen, is currently testing the RACE Hub platform by performing complex computing-hungry processes – like simulating and visualising the propagation of light on an integrated photonic chip – to try to overload the system to see if it works.
Direct access to the RACE Hub platform means that when he wants to design and simulate brain-like chips, or to create a chip which could break the record for the world’s fastest internet, he can now run multiple processes all at once, with computing capability that will expand and scale as he needs it.
For the Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre, this new kind of efficient high performance computing capability creates a number of exciting applications including helping us to rapidly design and prototype chips faster than ever before to make our internet faster, helping drones more accurately inspect railway infrastructure, and building portable, handheld devices that could detect ovarian cancer more accurately.
RACE Hub is the collaboration between RMIT, Amazon Web Services and AARNet, and is supported by the Victorian Government Higher Education Investment Fund.
Supporting a world-class research facility like InPAC, with the cutting-edge cloud computing capability (RACE Hub) will improve research efficiency. I look forward to continuing to partner with InPAC to accelerate research excellence.
- Dr Robert Shen,
Director of the RACE Hub (RMIT AWS Cloud Supercomputing Hub)
Simulation and Design Team Leader, Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre, RMIT
Director, AWS Cloud Supercomputing Hub, RMIT University
Read more about RMIT's collaboration with Amazon Web Services.
Acknowledgement of Country
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.
Acknowledgement of Country
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.
