Monash University is investing AU$60 million (US$39m) to build an AI supercomputer.

Dubbed MAVERIC (Monash AdVanced Environment for Research and Intelligent Computing), implementation of the system’s core hardware is expected in early 2025.

In a statement, the Melbourne, Australia-based university said the investment will “fill a critical gap in Australia’s high-performance computing infrastructure,” and position the institution as a “leader in AI-driven research within the international higher education and research sector.”

MAVERIC will initially be used to support research into global health challenges, including projects focused on the early detection of cancer, managing the treatment of chronic diseases, and enabling scientists to efficiently and cost-effectively identify new medicines, the university said.

No details about the supercomputer’s expected compute power, or which vendors will be providing the hardware, have been released. DCD has reached out to Monash University for further information.

The university has said, however, that it is committed to using 100 percent renewable energy to power MAVERIC, with the aim of ensuring its ongoing operation is within the institution’s commitment to net zero.

Monash University is already home to a number of HPC deployments, including M3, which is comprised of a “large number of (mostly Intel) CPUs and Nvidia GPUs connected by Nvidia Mellanox InfiniBand interconnects,” and the MonARCH HPC cluster, consisting of more than 60 servers, totalling to over 1600 CPU cores, and 15 GPU nodes.

“Investment in world-leading AI is a crucial step in supercharging our sovereign research capabilities to ensure Australia is well-equipped to foster innovation and discovery geared towards tackling some of the major challenges of our time,” said Professor Sharon Pickering, Monash University vice-chancellor and president. “MAVERIC will also deliver generational capability for our students – from undergraduate to postgraduate, as we equip the leaders of tomorrow to ethically and innovatively develop human-centred AI to improve the human condition and the future of the planet.”