$88m big data research centre opens in South Australia

Centre will address big data challenges faced by defence, national security agencies

An $88 million big data research and development centre has opened in Adelaide, South Australia to look at how defence/national security agencies can use big data to predict cyber and physical threats to Australia.

The University of South Australia, University of Adelaide, University of New South Wales, Deakin University and Carnegie Mellon University have signed on as research participants at the Data to Decisions Cooperative Research Centre (D2D CRC). The Department of Defence, Australian Federal Police, Attorney-General's Office and Defence South Australia are also involved.

Researchers will look at data storage/management, analytics/decision support and big data analysis. D2D CRC chair Tim Scully said he will research and develop tools to “maximise the benefits” that defence and national security sectors can extract from big data.

“Addressing big data challenges and applying high-performance analytics can make the difference between predicting a threat and reacting to a catastrophic aftermath,” he said in a statement.

Scully added that D2D CRC will employ approximately 40 full time staff, produce 50 PhD students and train more than 1,000 data scientists.

In addition, the SA centre will be supported by teams in Victoria and NSW.

According to a Unisys spokeswoman, D2D CRC staff will use a security software product called Stealth to share commercially sensitive information and files.

She said the vendor will train D2D CRC staff to use Stealth and talk with the university and government participants about the best use of the software to protect information.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

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Tags unisysDefence Departmentnational securitybig data analyticsD2D CRC

More about Attorney-GeneralAustralian Federal PoliceCarnegie Mellon University AustraliaDeakin UniversityDeakin UniversityDeakin UniversityDepartment of DefenceFacebookFederal PoliceMellonNICTAUnisys AustraliaUniversity of AdelaideUniversity of New South WalesUniversity of New South WalesUniversity of South AustraliaUniversity of South Australia

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