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Capability 1.1.3.2.1

Public Sector & Public Interest Inferencing Compute Clusters

Definition

Compute clusters equipped for large-scale public sector or public interest inferencing, typically used in research, environmental modelling or national security contexts, including HPC systems.

Examples

  • Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) – Cray/HPE supercomputing environment
  • National Computational Infrastructure (NCI)
  • National Security HPC environment (e.g. Defence Supercomputing Capability).

Indicators

  • Number and scale of publicly owned inferencing-capable HPC clusters
  • Availability and cluster sizes of accelerators
  • Number of accelerators
  • Compute hours accessible to public interest research

National AI Plan

PLAN COMMITMENT

Moderate commitment

See general comment at 1.1.2.1.1 (Cloud Training Compute Infrastructure as a Service (public cloud)). Plan recommits to scaling of public sector AI capability through GovAI infrastructure, which has existing committed funding of $225.2 million (Action 2, Action 6, Action 7). Marked as a moderate commitment given size of this whole-of-government investment in comparison to equivalent private sector investments and investments in other jurisdictions. Given the high public interest in fostering this capability, review of the government's current commitment is recommended.

Stocktake

Is the Stocktake missing evidence?

Share additional information for potential future Assessments