Powering Discovery, Sharing Success, and Building Community
Dear Name,
Welcome to our March newsletter, where you will find updates on new infrastructure capabilities, research impact, upcoming events, and stories highlighting the science enabled by Pawsey’s systems. We also share the launch of our new video podcast, HPC Hearts & Minds, and the expansion of high-memory capacity on Setonix to better support memory-intensive research workflows.
Pawsey has doubled the number of high-memory CPU nodes available on Setonix, increasing capacity from 8 to 16 nodes. This upgrade better supports memory-intensive research workflows, and is all thanks to researcher feedback. Your feedback helps ensure Setonix continues to support the science that matters most.
Last month was massive for the power of research using Pawsey, with 24 new published papers – and 15 in pre-print – that have used Pawsey to advance science.
During February, Pawsey also contributed to national discussions on the evolving role of high-performance computing, data and AI in Australia’s research ecosystem.
Our CEO Mark Stickells has been involved with a series of stakeholder meetings across the country. Pawsey hosted the WA Science and Technology Council, an advisory body to the WA Minister for Science and Innovation. Mark co-chaired the meeting, which focused on AI, HPC, and data infrastructure to inform upcoming advice to Government. This reinforced Pawsey's part as a key state asset with strong impact nationally.
Our work in quantum has been given some great attention last month, starting with a Forbes feature article interviewing Pascal Elahi, our Pawsey Quantum Lead. Pascal discussed Pawsey's role in the National Quantum Strategy. To celebrate 20 years of NCRIS’s impact on national research infrastructure, we contributed to the showcase of discoveries across Australia in a feature story.
It was a big week for our partnership with NCI Australia. They welcomed their new Chair, Sally-Ann Williams. We look forward to working closely with her and the NCI board as Australia’s strategic approach to digital research infrastructure evolves.
Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre has doubled the number of high-memory CPU nodes available on Setonix, increasing capacity from 8 to 16 nodes to better support memory-intensive research workflows.
Each high-memory node features dual 2.45 GHz AMD EPYC 7763 “Milan” 64-core CPUs with 1 TB of shared memory.
The latest annual Pawsey User Survey highlighted the need for more high-memory resources to run jobs that require a single shared memory space, support single-node codes, or need to access very large datasets instantly and together.
EOIs for upcoming Pawsey Visualisation Conference 2026
We are excited to announce that planning has begun for the upcoming Pawsey Visualisation Conference 2026, and we are now seeking Expressions of Interest (EOI) from researchers who would like to contribute to the program.
If you are interested in presenting, running a workshop, showcasing a visualisation project, or suggesting a topic or speaker, we’d love to hear from you.
Contributions from across the community of researchers, industry partners, technical experts, and collaborators are all welcome.
Australian BioCommons: Help shape the future of AI in life sciences research and training
29 April 2026 – Online
By sharing the current tools, processes, bottlenecks and skill gaps you experience, you can help prioritise national investments in digital infrastructure and directly shape our upcoming training programs.
Powered by Pawsey: Published papers showcasing the power of HPC
There were 24 papers that were published in February (and 15 in pre-print) that were powered by Pawsey. These papers reveal some incredible discoveries.
Researchers from Curtin University’s TrEnD Laboratory used Pawsey’s supercomputing resources to analyse hundreds of thousands of DNA sequences. This led to a discovery that simple clinical swabs and paint rollers are highly effective for collecting invisible animal traces from vegetation. This offers a low-cost, non‑invasive way for biodiversity monitoring across the country.
An international team, supported by Curtin University, screened 8 million compounds on Setonix to identify 13 promising new drug candidates for HER2-positive breast cancer.
Using Pawsey and NCI supercomputers, Professor Xiwang Zhang’s team at The University of Queensland designed ultra-strong, highly selective membranes inspired by nature’s confined chemistry. The new membranes are 37% denser, over five times stronger than conventional versions, and deliver up to 20 times higher hydroxide conductivity. This is a major step forward for green hydrogen, fuel cells and advanced separation technologies.
Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, 1 Bryce Avenue, Kensington, Western Australia 6151, Australia, 0864368920
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