The new £3.25m N8 Centre of Excellence for High Performance Computing (N8 HPC) provides a full service from this month.
The centre is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and will provide a shared facility for high performance computing for the N8 Research Partnership universities of Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York.
On a scale which previously was not readily available to the N8 universities, the facility provides researchers with access to a high performance computing facility, shared on an equal basis. Since it was set up in June 2012, the N8 HPC has been piloting 16 projects – 2 from each of the N8 partners – to help test the centre and prepare it for full service.
Based at the University of Leeds, and run jointly with the University of Manchester, N8 HPC will provide a major boost to world-class research in all of the N8 universities, enabling researchers to build more realistic computational models and undertake more complex analyses in fields as diverse as healthcare, sustainable energy and aerospace. The shared facility will make it easier for institutions to collaborate on research and will create opportunities to engage more effectively with business and the community.
An event will be held in March 2013 to launch the service to industry and to highlight the opportunities for collaboration and knowledge exchange.