The NCMAS 2026 call has opened up, our Partner Allocation Scheme deadline is extended, and we're hosting the International High-Performance Computing Summer School next year!
Powering Discovery, Sharing Success, and Building Community
Dear Name,
Welcome to Pawsey’s October Newsletter.
What a month! Big news first: we announced the Setonix-Q Pilot, a portal for Australian researchers to have access to both silicon-based and quantum computing from Pawsey.
This world-first aims to lower traditional barriers to accessing quantum technology – and our Quantum Hub Portal makes the process a whole lot easier.
Our CEO Mark Stickells presented at the Energy in WA Conference, as well as joined a panel on the role of WA’s energy infrastructure and expertise in enabling AI, advanced computing, and sustainable data centres – using Pawsey as a case study.
Mark Stickells represented Pawsey at the national launch of Science 2035: Where Do We Want To Be. During the event. The roadmap identifies eight critical capabilities, including AI and data science, where supercomputing is central. The Australian Academy of Science also announced new 2025 Fellows and award winners, with strong Pawsey connections:
Professor Derek Leinweber (University of Adelaide) – elected Fellow
Professor Rajeev Varshney (Murdoch University) – elected Fellow
Associate Professor Natasha Hurley-Walker – awarded the 2025 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science
Associate Professor Claudia Lagos – awarded the Pawsey Medal
Mark also joined the inaugural WA Science & Technology Council meeting, chaired by Chief Scientist Professor Sharath Sriram. Our COO Shaun Griffin spoke at Perth Focus 2025: Developing the Hub about how HPC underpins everything from AI and biosciences to defence.
A bunch of us joined Pawsey Ambassador and Executive Director at Australian Data Science Education Institute Dr Linda McIver's podcast. Mark Gray, Dr Emily Kahl, Dr Sarah Beecroft, and Dr Sarah Pearce all made an appearance and shared their knowledge – from data science and supercomputing to robodebt and bioinformatics.
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.
Setonix-Q Pilot announced
Australian researchers can now tap into quantum computing through Pawsey’s unique Setonix-Q Pilot allocation.
With NCMAS allocations opening this week, you will have the chance to access quantum hardware via the Quantum Hub Portal through NCMAS.
This free access is provided through the peer-reviewed NCMAS and supported by the Australia Government via National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) funding.
The National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (NCMAS) 2026 call has opened. NCMAS provides Australian researchers access to world-class HPC resources across Australia, enabling breakthrough science at scale.
Applications close on Friday, 31 October (5pm AWST).
The Pawsey Partner Scheme call has been extended to Monday October 13, 2025 (5pm AWST).
This annual opportunity provides significant compute time allocations on Setonix CPU and GPU resources for meritorious projects led by researchers from CSIRO, Curtin University, and the University of Western Australia, as well as Western Australian Government agencies.
With the Partner Allocation scheme deadline extended to Monday, 13 October, Pawsey is hosting a special Ask Me Anything (AMA) session to support researchers from our partner institutions.
Join Maciej, Pawsey’s Head of Scientific Services, on Monday, 6 October, for a live Q&A on Microsoft Teams.
This is your chance to ask questions about the submission process, eligibility, or the allocation scheme in general before finalising your application.
Visitors given insights from leading educators in HPC.
Pawsey's exclusive half-day Open Day celebrated World Teacher's Day, with attendees joining in-person and online.
In line with the theme, educators Igor Bray (Curtin University), Sean Buckley (Edith Cowan University), Siobhon Egan (Murdoch University) and Gayatri Aniruddha (University of Western Australia) all shared their experiences in teaching HPC to students, and the opportunities available in the future.
Those in person also had a networking lunch, and were shown a behind-the-scenes tour of our Setonix supercomputer and our Visualisation Lab.
This was the first in a new series of Pawsey Open Days, each aligned with an international occasion and tailored to different groups.
We are proud to announce that Perth, Western Australia, has been selected to host the International High-Performance Computing Summer School on HPC Challenges in Computational Sciences (IHPCSS).
This is the first time the summer school will take place in the Southern Hemisphere since its inception in 2010.
The International HPC Summer School has been a cornerstone event in the global computational sciences calendar, alternating between North America, Europe and Japan over the past decade and a half.
The 2026 IHPCSS is expected to bring together around 100 of the world’s most talented graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from more than 20 nationalities across five continents.
Over an intensive week of tutorials, workshops, mentoring, and networking, participants gain deep expertise in advanced HPC technologies and computational methods, guided by leading scientists from the world’s top supercomputing centres.
As part of the new Here, There and Everywhere gallery at WA's Scitech, one of the 17 new exhibits is an SKA-inspired display.
Pawsey joined SKAO in Australia and other key radio astronomy partners at the launch last month to celebrate this collaborative achievement in radio astronomy outreach.
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre researchers, led by Dr Anna Trigos, are investigating cancer evolution and treatment resistance.
Through the Australian BioCommons Leadership Share (ABLeS) program,
the Trigos Lab has been using Pawsey's Setonix to expand their high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities.
This gave the team a better understanding of the differences between their on-premise HPC and Setonix, and how to integrate external HPC resources into their research workflows.
The increased computational power has helped the analysis and simulation of 3D spatial cancer tissue data.
The Trigos Lab focuses on understanding treatment resistance and response through the lens of both cancer evolution and ecosystems. Their methodology incorporates bioinformatics, computational biology, engineering, statistics, deep learning, and now HPC.
As part of our 25 years of Pawsey, our Annual Report included interviews with people across the timeline who have contributed to our story.
A former Chief Scientist of Australia, as well as Chief Scientist at CSIRO, Cathy Foley was instrumental in supporting the development of the Australian quantum industry and helping articulate the transformative potential of supercomputing.
Listen to her explanation on the importance of Pawsey in demonstrating the link between these emerging technologies.
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