Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy, Senator Hume. Can the minister update the Senate on what the Morrison government is doing to increase Australian research capacity by leveraging super computing power?

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bragg a lot for this question. In fact, I'm extraordinarily grateful for this question because only just this morning I had the pleasure of visiting the National Computational Infrastructure Facility at the ANU. I met somebody called Gadi—or something called Gadi. Gadi is the most powerful supercomputer in the Southern Hemisphere. It is in fact the 27th most powerful supercomputer in the world. The Morrison government is very proud to have supported this remarkable technology, with $70 million allocated in 2019 to get this supercomputer up and running, supporting jobs in the Australian research and technology industry. It's right here in Canberra on the ANU campus.

I met with Associate Director Alan Higgins, Professor Sean Smith and Vice-Chancellor Brian Schmidt, who told me it has already been put to work by a large community of researchers from the likes of the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia and, of course, the ANU itself. You may not know this but Gadi actually means 'to search for' in the language of the Ngunawal people and that's exactly what Gadi does. It allows researchers to process extraordinary amounts of data in search of answers to some of our most challenging questions. For example, it's been leveraged to build a complex genomic data set for studies into cancer, into diabetes, into lupus and into heart disease. In fact, it's given ANU astronomers a better understanding how stars form. A team of chemists have been incorporating the supercomputer into its search for a COVID-19 treatment. Both CSIRO and Geoscience Australia will use the supercomputer to improve their own systems aimed at predicting extreme weather patterns including fires, earthquakes, tsunami and cyclones.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bragg, a supplementary question?

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister outline what the government is doing to support world-leading research in complex data-intensive projects right here on Australian soil?

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's hard to overstate the extraordinary utility of a facility like Gadi. It has 155,000 processor cores. It can transfer data at 200 gigabits per second within the supercomputer itself. I know there are a few people in this room that aren't tech heads, but, trust me, that is incredibly fast. 'How fast?' I hear you ask. A 4K film can be downloaded in well u under a second.

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I heard you ask, 'How fast'! In 2019-20, Gadi supported over 1,125 research projects, with over 6,000 users across Australia allocating 756 million hours of computing time. That is an extraordinary amount of number crunching to support world-leading and potentially life-changing research, right here in Australia.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bragg, a final supplementary question?

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister explain what the Gadi supercomputer is researching that will benefit Australians now and into the future?

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Lucy Guest at the NCI told me today, 'Pick a field of science, and that's where you will find a benefit.' For example, the NCI's partnership with the Bureau of Meteorology enables increasingly accurate weather predictions, knowing where and how rain will fall and where frost will set in and enables our agricultural sector and our farmers to make far better choices, to optimise yield, to minimise cost and to minimise waste.

I understand that Senator Watt believes supercomputing is something that involves wearing your underpants on the outside and watching funny cat videos, but that's not what we're doing here. In fact, Gadi is helping build more accurate models of fire movement, helping to predict bushfire behaviour and save lives and save livelihoods. With researchers leveraging Gadi to help the model of the next-generation personalised genomic medicine, Australians and people around the world can look forward to improved treatments for rare diseases like cancers and more. (Time expired)

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I thank Senator Hume for giving Senator Watt the fashion sense of former Senator Conroy, in her answer there, and I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.