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4th February 2013

February Member of the Month: High Performance Computing (HPC) Wales

HPC Wales: helping Wales out-compute to out-compete

High Performance Computing (HPC) Wales is Wales’ national supercomputing service. Host to the UK’s largest national distributed supercomputing network, we offer businesses and researchers local access to world-class technology, along with the support and training they need to exploit it effectively. Our core aims are to power innovation and success across a number of Welsh Government priority sectors, build high-quality high performance computing (HPC) skills and grow Wales’ economy.

HPC – also known as ‘supercomputing’ – has a wide number of applications to health and biosciences, as it enables large data sets to be processed and analysed rapidly and accurately, can dramatically reduce development costs and makes research that was previously impossible, possible.

HPC is used for modelling purposes where physical testing is impractical, for bio engineering and plant-based development work, and for a large number of medical developments, for example, in designing new drugs, developing remote surgery techniques, and managing the massive amounts of data involved in genomics research, research that is fuelling the future of Personalized Medicine.

HPC Wales is already working with a number of MediWales members, and is keen to work in collaboration with other members, to ensure that they and the companies they service have access to the HPC they need, have solutions that enable them to derive important information within short timeframes, and are at as great an advantage as possible.

We provide:

  • Easy access to our secure, pan-Wales distributed supercomputing network
  • Access to a Biomedical Analytics system, based at Swansea University, enabling academics and businesses to carry out data mining on anonymised medical and social data
  • A confidential, no obligation Business Diagnostic service to help businesses identify whether the services available from HPC Wales could help address them address key challenges
  • Guidance around intellectual property ownership
  • Confidential consultancy and access to academic and technical expertise
  • Support for software provision or purchase, installation and customisation
  • Training through our Skills Academy – contributory bursaries are available
  • Facilitation between business and academia to drive commercial innovation. We have already facilitated a number of valuable collaborations.

One of our collaborative projects in the life sciences sector is that of Bangor University and SME Heritage Medical Ltd. who are working together to develop innovative organic healthcare products. HPC will enable them to maintain growth in an increasingly competitive market.

MediWales member Calon Cardio-Technology Ltd. are using HPC Wales in the development of the next generation of implantable heart pumps. Technical Director Dr Graham Fosters says, “HPC Wales provided access to the software (ANSYS) and the computing power we needed to refine the design of our implantable pumps, speeding up our research process tenfold and enabling us to carry out product trials within a competitive timeframe.”

 

HPC Wales is also keen to work with software partners and design or health informatics consultancies to enhance the HPC offering to Wales’ Life Sciences sector and work.

If you want to find out if HPC Wales could help you, or if you’re interested in working with us, please contact will Krawszik on will.krawszik@hpcwales.co.uk or 07850 771288

* HPC Wales is a partnership between the Universities in Wales and Fujitsu, and is funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government, the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.