Setonix is the name of Pawsey’s new supercomputer being delivered by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) as part of the biggest upgrade to the Pawsey computing infrastructure since the centre opened in 2009. Setonix will deliver up to 50 petaFLOPs, or 30 times more compute power than its predecessor systems Magnus and Galaxy, to help power the future high-impact Australian research projects.

Setonix Phase 1 hardware arrived at Pawsey in September 2021.  Phase 1 will provide a 45 percent increase in raw compute power in one-fifth of the size compared with the Magnus and Galaxy systems.

Setonix is being built using the HPE Cray EX architecture, featuring significantly increased compute power and more emphasis on accelerators with future-generation AMD EPYC™ CPUs and AMD Instinct™ GPUs, and including expanded data storage capabilities with the Cray Clusterstor E1000 system.

Setonix will be at least ten times more energy efficient than its predecessors Magnus and Galaxy, while providing a 30-fold increase in raw compute power. The supercomputers are cooled by a groundwater cooling system specially developed by CSIRO for the supercomputing centre, which is offset by a 118kW solar photovoltaic system.

Reflecting Setonix role in processing radio telescope data from space, Australia’s fastest supercomputer is clad in a beautiful representation of Aboriginal astronomy that dates back thousands of year, an artwork produced by Wajarri Yamatji artist Margaret Whitehurst.

The first look at Setonix reveals cabinets that continue the theme of Indigenous art casing that began with Magnus.

Wajarri Yamatji visual artist Margaret Whitehurst produced the artwork for Setonix, inspired by the stars that shine over Wajarri country in Western Australia’s Mid-West.