DST interns pay a visit to the centre

A group of 10 interns from the Department of Science and Technology’s (DST) International Cooperation and Resources Directorate are currently on a tour of all the department’s entities with an element of international relations. The group visited the CHPC recently.

During the visit to the centre, CHPC Research Manager, Dr Werner van Rensburg provided a talk on the work of the centre and the integral role of the other three legs of South Africa’s Cyberinfrasture – the South African National Research Network and the Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa. 

The interns showed much interest in the technical make-up of Lengau – the centre’s computing cluster, how the machine is cooled and the power supply infrastructure for the machine. They also visited the centre’s Advanced Engineering lab whose main focus is the evaluation and development of products and technologies for HPC.  

The interns were accompanied by Siphokuhle Zwane from the DST and he is explained the importance of these site visits, “It is important to us that the interns get a full understanding of what the bilateral and multilateral discussions entail technically and that they get a feel of the social impact of the work the department does, something they would not feel sitting in the office, that is why we take them through the sites that have an international relations component”, he said. 

The visit ended with a walk-about of the centre and was followed by visits to other sites such as the Cape Town harbour to see the Algoa Research Vessel, Parliament, Hydrogen South Africa at the University of the Western Cape, EndoAfrica at Stellenbosch University and Shark Spotters in Fish Hoek.