UQ and IBM launch Centre of Excellence

The University of Queensland has partnered with IBM Australia to launch a Centre of Excellence which will support researchers working across health, manufacturing and environmental sciences.

The IBM@UQ Centre of Excellence will help address the challenges associated with extreme data growth, data organisation and data storage.

UQ Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Bronwyn Harch said as research efforts become increasingly data-rich, it was vital UQ provided researchers with the resources and capabilities to store and access huge amounts of information.

“Our relationship with IBM helped us set up this Centre of Excellence with the latest technology,” Professor Harch said.

“UQ looks forward to broadening our collaboration with IBM as we work together to further computing capacity to support research into the future.”

Jason Price, Director and General Manager, Systems, IBM Australia said IBM looked for opportunities to become more than just a supplier, but a trusted advisor and partner in delivering outcomes.

"This is a great opportunity to work with The University of Queensland to use our expertise, as well as our leadership in scale-out storage solutions, to assist organisations like UQ in tackling the challenges of extreme data growth and data insight,” Mr Price said.

In addition to the Centre of Excellence, IBM has recently provided a number of novel data storage and computer hardware platforms for experimentation and evaluation within UQ’s Research Computing Centre (RCC).

This partnership is expected to accelerate research being conducted within the University and provide valuable support to researchers.

RCC Director Professor David Abramson has worked closely with IBM and said the Centre of Excellence would help build innovative platforms to support UQ researchers.

“UQ makes a perfect environment for this type of work because our research demands the latest technology to stay competitive, but we can also be a little bold in what might be achieved,” Professor Abramson said.

Media: Professor David Abramson, david.abramson@uq.edu.au; Shannon Lindsay, UQ Research Computing Centre communications, s.lindsay@uq.edu.au, +61 420 524 392.