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HPC 2015-16 | Canada


Computing Canada’s future


Mark Dietrich outlines how Canada is building a digital infrastructure to transform the country from an economy based on natural resources to a knowledge-based economy


Canada’s competitiveness and its ability to develop the workforce it needs in sectors such as life sciences, financial services, advanced materials, aerospace, automotive, and energy rely on a robust digital research infrastructure. Fortunately, Canada has a solid base, both organisationally and technically, that can support the strong growth planned in this area for the next few years. Tat base is Compute Canada. In its document, Seizing Canada’s Moment


Moving Forward in Science, Technology and Innovation 2014, the Government of Canada acknowledged that advanced research computing (ARC) underpins the prosperity of our nation and is a major ingredient in the recipe that will transform Canada from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy. Compute Canada is the national


organisation that provides and oversees Canada’s advanced research computing resources, including big data analysis, visualisation, data storage, soſtware, portals and platforms for research computing at most of its academic and research institutes. It is a national federation of advanced research computing service providers, funded by the federal government, provincial governments, and 34 of Canada’s most research-intensive universities and research hospitals. Tis federated model delivers the majority of the large-scale research computing capacity in Canada and serves more than 9,000 researchers across the country.


Investing in the future Keeping up with demand for compute cycles and data storage is a challenge in every country. Until recently, capital funding in Canada for resources that could be used


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“Compute Canada’s federated model combines resources across the country”


across Canada had been limited, and Compute Canada has struggled to keep an ageing platform running. However, several recent announcements have confirmed Canada’s commitment to digital research infrastructure by government and national funding agencies. Tese announcements will enable Compute Canada to increase compute


and storage capabilities by a factor of five or more over the next two years, with further investments expected in later years. Tese investments underscore the


importance of this infrastructure and the effectiveness of Compute Canada as a steward of the national ARC platform. Compute Canada’s federated model combines the resources of several layers of governance across the country. Bringing all of its compute services and


storage capabilities under one national federation allows it to concentrate and consolidate their investments and to provide world-class services to Canada’s leading


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