Monash University has secured $4.3 million in funding from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) to lead four major data and cloud infrastructure science projects, advancing the artificial intelligence (AI), data science and research technology capabilities at the university.
The four projects focus on building scalable data environments for data-centric research, sensitive data and strengthening the use of AI techniques, such as machine learning (ML).
Monash University will work in partnership with other leading research organisations and universities to deliver these projects, harnessing the combined resources and knowledge to achieve improved high performance data environments for researchers.
Monash was one of four organisations that received funding to upgrade its node of ARDC’s Nectar Research Cloud. This national research cloud infrastructure provides core services to more than 16,000 researchers in approximately 1,600 currently active projects, enabling Australia’s research community to store, access, and analyse data.
Monash University’s vice-provost (research and research infrastructure), Professor Ian Smith, said this funding was critically important, as the research community is now generating more data than ever and needs new solutions.
“Researchers are producing incredible amounts of complex and in some cases, unstructured data. These four largescale projects will allow us to leverage our research technology platforms to strengthen and further build national infrastructure for research data technologies,” Smith said.
Professor Paul Bonnington, Monash eResearch Centre Director, said that he believes the success is testament to the thriving research community at Monash and across its project partners, which are motivated to improving the research environment in order to keep up with exponential change.
“It is particularly encouraging to see the ARDC looking to Monash for leadership in the increasingly important area of infrastructure for sensitive research data, including health data, commercial data and government data,” Bonnington said.