UQ Research Computing Centre

16/09/2026

The "AI Sandpit" RCC co-hosted on Monday, 14 September, as part of UQ's Research & Innovation Week, was a roaring success.

The interactive showcase explored AI’s quirks and blind spots through hands-on demonstrations and playful challenges. From inconsistent outputs to hidden assumptions, various 'stations' revealed how AI can lead research astray. A handful of RCC staff provided their expertise throughout the showcase.

Some of the models were running on the IBM Fusion platform, as part of the IBM@UQ Centre of Excellence, and all AI models were running on hardware physically located in UQ's tenancy in the Polaris Data Centre in Springfield, Queensland.

A panel discussion and Q&A followed the showcase. UQ researchers and AI experts shared how they work with AI and the current UQ initiatives that can help mitigate risks while accelerating impactful research in an ever-changing landscape.

RCC hosted the event alongside UQ’s Office of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research Infrastructure).

11/09/2026

RCC Director Jake Carroll and RCC Research Systems Projects and Delivery Manager Sarah Walters have spent the last few weeks in Europe. This week they attended the HPC Leadership Institute in Barcelona, and last week they were at FLOPS: Forum for Large-scale Operations in Parallel Systems in Lund, Sweden: https://indico.ess.eu/event/4040/

Below are photos from the FLOPS conference.

Website for the HPC Leadership Institute - Edition 2026: https://www.bsc.es/news/events/hpc-leadership-institute-edition-2026

31/07/2026

Bunya Phase 4.0 nodes are now available to all users.

New CPU nodes are available in the Bunya general partition.

New GPU nodes are available in the Bunya user_test partition. Please note these nodes are still being tested and may be shutdown or rebooted without notice.

Bunya users, please see the “RCC HPC Alert” email sent this afternoon for more information about using the new nodes.

The Bunya user guide has been updated with information about Bunya Phase 4.0: https://rcc.uq.edu.au/systems/high-performance-computing/user-guides

Read our latest news article about Bunya Phase 4.0 for more general information about the upgrade: https://rcc.uq.edu.au/article/2026/06/advanced-bunya-upgrade-about-go-live

The latest upgrade of The University of Queensland’s main supercomputer, featuring the first GPU technology deployment of its nature in the Australian research sector, is due to go live this July.

22/07/2026

IBM has given a RCC staffer the honour of contributing to one of its in-depth technical publications.

Sarah Walters, RCC Research Systems Projects and Delivery Manager, is co-author of an IBM Systems’ Redbooks publication titled “IBM Storage Scale: Working with Abstract Data.”

RCC Director Jake Carroll said: “It’s very rare for a person outside of IBM to contribute to these types of publications.”

Read more: https://rcc.uq.edu.au/article/2026/06/rcc-staffer-adds-uq-case-study-ibm-redbooks

Sarah Walters, RCC Research Systems Projects and Delivery Manager, is co-author of an IBM Systems’ Redbooks publication titled “IBM Storage Scale: Working with Abstract Data.”

17/07/2026

We’re so proud of Dr Marlies Hankel, UQ RCC Senior Liaison and Policy Manager, being selected for a women in HPC ( ) panel at an international supercomputing conference in Germany last month.

Marlies joined three other panelists for a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session at the ISC High Performance 2026 conference ( ) in Hamburg on Wednesday, 24 June.

https://rcc.uq.edu.au/article/2026/06/rcc-staffer-joins-global-women-hpc-panel

A University of Queensland Research Computing Centre staffer was included on a women in high-performance computing (WHPC) panel at an international supercomputing conference in Germany in June 2026.

30/06/2026

RCC’s newsletter out now!

Featured photo is of RCC’s Dr Marlies Hankel on a global women in HPC panel at in Hamburg, Germany.

Other news items include:

* Advanced Bunya upgrade about to go live
* Queensland Nectar Node transitions to UQ
* New job role created to enhance IBM and UQ partnership
* RCC staffer adds UQ case study to IBM Redbooks
* RCC staffer heading to Belfast for HPC conference

Advanced Bunya upgrade about to go live; Queensland Nectar Node transitions to UQ; New job role created for IBM & UQ partnership; RCC staffer on global women in HPC panel; RCC staffer adds UQ case study to IBM Redbooks; RCC staffer heading to Belfast for HPC conference.

23/06/2026

RCC staff Jake Carroll, Dr Marlies Hankel, & Irek Porebski are attending ISC High Performance 2026 in Hamburg, Germany this week.

Marlies is on a Women in HPC panel.

Jake is attending as part of the IBM@UQ Centre of Excellence and Innovation.

June 22-26, Hamburg, Germany: Europe’s Leading HPC, AI & Quantum Coference & Exhibition.

25/05/2026

RCC staffers Jake Carroll and Sarah Walters attended / in Japan earlier this year. Read their reports about industry trends and their experience at the landmark event for the Asia-Pacific supercomputing community.

https://rcc.uq.edu.au/article/2026/04/rcc-scahpcasia-2026-convergence-constraints-and-future-research-computing

Two RCC staffers attended SupercomputingAsia (SCA) and HPCAsia 2026, held in Osaka, Japan from 26–29 January, alongside more than 2,500 participants from academia, industry and government.

14/05/2026

We will take over operational responsibility for the Queensland Node of the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) Nectar Research Cloud from QCIF Digital Research from 1 July 2026.

This transition is building on UQ and RCC's extensive experience in delivering national research services and QCIF Digital Research's successful stewardship of the Queensland node since its inception.

https://rcc.uq.edu.au/article/2026/05/queensland-nectar-node-transition-uq

The University of Queensland's Research Computing Centre (RCC) will take over operational responsibility for the Queensland Node of the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) Nectar Research Cloud from QCIF Digital Research from 1 July 2026.

12/05/2026

RCC has deployed a new feature on its XNAT advanced imaging platform to make it easier for researchers to use their data with the latest research software and integrated analysis pipelines.

The new Australian Imaging Service (AIS) capability allows researchers to launch Jupyter Notebooks and the Neurodesk platform directly from their project on the UQ AIS XNAT platform, with access to their imaging data.

RCC Senior Principal Software Engineer/Developer Dr Mark Endrei said: “The Neurodesk Notebook provides researchers with a virtual desktop and an extensive suite of biomedical imaging tools with support for GPU acceleration.”

Aswin Narayanan, National Imaging Facility (NIF) Senior Imaging Informatics Fellow at UQ, said: “This integration brings UQ’s large repository of imaging data backed by XNAT and UQ Research Data Manager (UQRDM) together with hundreds of analysis tools and software into a single environment, removing the need to install software and transfer data.

“We’re excited to be the first node in the national AIS and NIF network to launch this integration,” said Aswin.

RCC is keen to hear from UQ XNAT users interested in piloting this new feature.

https://rcc.uq.edu.au/article/2026/04/new-feature-launch-neurodesk-xnat

RCC has deployed a new feature on its XNAT advanced imaging platform to make it easier for researchers to use their data with the latest research software and integrated analysis pipelines.