ARCCA

Advanced Research Computing at Cardiff (ARCCA) is Cardiff University's specialist team providing high performance computing services, expert consultancy and training for researchers. Led by Director Dr Jon Lockley, the team manages Cardiff's supercomputing infrastructure, including Falcon, which succeeds the university's Hawk system.
ARCCA supports a broad portfolio of research, with particular strength in computational chemistry, materials and engineering. Falcon extends that further, giving researchers across bioscience, artificial intelligence and large scale simulation access to the same platform. Individual researchers have already funded expansions to the service themselves.
ARCCA is governed by the Cardiff Supercomputing Facilities Steering Group and a User Group, both focused on user needs and HPC development.

Supercomputing Wales

ARCCA sits within Supercomputing Wales, a consortium of four Welsh universities, Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor and Aberystwyth, providing high performance computing and research software engineering services across Wales, part funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government.

Cardiff's Hawk system served as the primary hub at around 20,000 cores, with Swansea's Sunbird as the sister hub at around 5,000 cores. Supercomputing Wales has had over 7,000 registered users since 2018.
Falcon's GPU expansion extends that reach beyond Cardiff. Access is provided to SCW partner institutions Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea, with a combined regional uptake of several thousand active users, supporting research spanning ocean and environmental sciences, nuclear science, artificial intelligence and computational biosciences.

Testimonies