The Ontario government has awarded $11.5 million to the University’s high-performance computing facility.
Announced Friday, the grant comes from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and the $550 million Ontario Research Fund. In the next five years, the province will donate a total of $39.2 million to the labs and aid up to 1,600 researchers.
Allison Barr, director of research programs at the Ministry of Research and Innovation, said, “We’re really excited to make this announcement at Queen’s. This kind of funding provides a lot of for Ontario universities.” The High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory is a cluster of computers located at the following seven Ontario research institutions: Queen’s University, Royal Military College, the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, Ryerson University, Loyalist College and Seneca College).
It provides high-powered processing and provides storage resources for researchers across Canada.
The virtual lab, founded in 1998, has its central computers at Queen’s and sites at the other six member institutions also help run the network.
The network provides high-speed computations and is a vital tool in many research areas, such as engineering, psychology, and economics. Calculations that on the most advanced desktop computers would take years to perform can be finished in days or even hours.
Queen’s professor Ken Edgecombe is the executive director of the program.
“It provides a resource to allow people to get their work done faster,” he said, adding that the lab also offers secure storage and access.
Edgecombe said it’s “important for researchers at Queens to be competitive on a global scale [and] many other projects need this as well, such as the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.”
Natalie Cann, a Queen’s chemistry professor who uses the virtual lab in her research, said that the virtual lab has had a huge impact on her work. “It allows us to spread out our work, as each processor does various parts of the job.” Cann’s research involves detecting changes in the geometry of different molecules, and requires computer simulations. The lab has proven useful because she said her research involves long and detailed simulations and strong computers.
Cann also said having virtual lab resources at Queen’s is good for the university.
“Good in of attracting graduate students, especially those interested in computational work, because we have access to outstanding resources,” she said.
Edgecombe said the grant will be put towards operational costs, such as salaries and for programs.
The Canadian Foundation for Innovation funds the infrastructure and computers.
Edgecombe said it’s “important for researchers at Queens to be competitive on a global scale [and] many other projects need this as well, such as the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.”
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