November 2025

PAWSEY POST

Powering Discovery, Sharing Success, and Building Community

Dear Name,

It's been a busy space at Pawsey, filled with engagement, planning and community connection. From showcasing Setonix to international visitors here in Perth, to contributing to Australia’s premier eResearch Australasia Conference over in Brisbane, our team has been busy.

Last month's National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (NCMAS) and Partner Allocation Schemes closed for applications, with an incredible amount of researchers coming through to seek some compute time.

So much so, we've had unprecedented demand for Setonix – reaching almost double its capacity. This demonstrates how essential supercomputers like Setonix and NCI's Gadi are for researchers across the country.

We kicked off the month with a strong presence at eResearch in Brisbane, co-hosting Australia’s HPC booth alongside NCI. The event brought together researchers, technologists, and infrastructure leaders from across the region. Our team ran sessions that explored everything from FAIR software and sustainable computing to AI infrastructure and workflow optimisation.

We also had a bit of fun with NCI and our HPC-themed giveaways – featuring quokkas, koalas, and recreating the Australia's HPC ecosystem map with the help of attendees.

Back in Perth, we welcomed a range of visitors to Pawsey, including representatives from AMD, the Australian Computer Society, and the SKA Observatory. These visits were great to share our work and strengthen ties across industry and research. We also participated in CSIRO’s HS-Me Day, reminding us of our commitment to workplace safety and improvement.

Our CEO Mark Stickells contributed to several key events, including a panel on AI and creativity hosted by FORM, the AI Leadership Summit in Brisbane, and the 40th anniversary of Science & Technology Australia. His reflections on the human role in AI and the importance of collaboration echoed throughout the month.

Our Communications Manager Karina Nunez attended the Executive Women’s Leadership Forum, where speakers highlighted the importance of surrounding yourself with good people and work together to make an impact.

Strategic planning was also front and centre, with the Pawsey Leadership Team meeting at UWA for a planning day with NCI’s leadership.

Every month our newsletter aims to share all the latest news to get you up to speed on what's happening. If there's something you feel would be a great addition to it, feel free to reach out and let us know.

On the ground at eResearch Australasia

Last month Team Pawsey spent a week in Brisbane for the eResearch Australasia Conference 2025. Together with the National Computational Infrastructure, Pawsey proudly co-hosted Australia’s HPC Booth, where visitors helped co-create a dynamic Map of Australia’s HPC Network.

We have a couple of videos covering just a couple of the Pawsey crew who spoke at sessions, Birds of a Feather and events. Watch Maciej Cytowski, Aditi Subramanya and Mark Gray talk about their experiences.

University of Sydney granted dedicated access to Setonix supercomputer

Through a new partnership with the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, the University of Sydney now has dedicated access to Setonix — unlocking 20 million compute hours annually for groundbreaking research in AI, biomedicine, and climate science.

With this scale of access to CPUs and GPUs, researchers will be able to simulate protein folding, drug interactions, and other complex phenomena that would be impossible without access to supercomputing.

Coming Soon: A Joint NCI-Pawsey Newsletter!

Big news is on the horizon! Pawsey and National Research Infrastructure (NCI) are joining forces to bring you a new joint newsletter.

This will be your go-to source for the latest stories, research highlights, and training opportunities from Australia's national supercomputing facilities.

This means there will soon be one unified newsletter, combining the best updates from both centres in a single, streamlined publication.

We'll be sharing more details as we get closer to it, so keep an eye out here and on our social channels on how to receive the latest in HPC, data, and digital research.

On Country with SKA Observatory

Ambassadors from SKAO member countries visited the Pawsey Centre, where they were welcomed by Mark Stickells and members of Pawsey’s Leadership Team.

The visit also brought together representatives from CSIRO's ASKAP, ICRAR (International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research), MWA, and SKAO, strengthening connections across the radio astronomy community.

Mark later joined the delegation on their trip to the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory – an energising opportunity to see progress on the ground, discuss future pathways for compute and data, and deepen international collaboration.

Thank you for 5,000 LinkedIn followers

We have our social media channels as a way to share more about all things Pawsey. So when we get a chance to reach a milestone, we want to do it properly.

If you're not already following us, we have a LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky and YouTube page where we update and share all sorts of exciting news. If you're on any of those platforms, why not give us a follow (who could say no to a quokka's face)?

More chances to connect with the Pawsey team and discover HPC

SCA/HPCAsia 2026

26-29 January 2026 – Osaka, Japan

More information

Fresh view of space

Visitors to Pawsey often marvel at the stunning digital sky in our visualisation space using Gleamoscope – created almost 10 years ago from data processed on our supercomputers as part of the original GLEAM Project.

Now, that ‘radio colour’ view of the universe has become even sharper — 10 times more sensitive and covering twice the area.

Natasha Hurley-Walker and Silvia Mantovanini used more than 1 million processing hours on Pawsey supercomputers to create a new radio portrait of the centre of the Milky Way – as seen by the Murchison Widefield Array.

Exploring the new interactive optical-radio viewer from the GLEAM-X survey was amazing. Read the full story and explore the new image for yourself.

Advancing Australia's science

As part of our 25 years of Pawsey, our Annual Report included interviews with people across the timeline who have contributed to our story.

Tim Shanahan became Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre's Chairman in 2021 – bringing experience in a wide range of industries, including ICT, research, infrastructure, energy, minerals.

Tim discusses Setonix, and the partnerships that are integral to Pawsey expanding its role in Australian science.