The University of Canterbury, the first institution in the Southern Hemisphere to have an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer, is to become the first tertiary institution in Australasia to teach high performance computing.

Four new courses this year (2009) will teach students how to use the latest technology in parallel computing and state-of-the-art computing architectures. Ten scholarships (eight domestic, two international) funded by the University and IBM will be available for students taking the courses.

"This development shows UC to be at the forefront of high performance computing in New Zealand and reflects our recognition that 21st century students need 21st century skills," said Professor Tim David, Director of the Centre for Bioengineering, in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

"Canterbury will be the only university in the country to have high performance computing in its curriculum."

The courses will be taught by Paul Walmsley, an acknowledged expert in high performance computing and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at UC.

They will provide students with an understanding of the different types of parallel computer architectures that are used in computational science and engineering disciplines to solve complex problems.

They will also introduce students to grid computing, a phenomenon becoming more widely used in scientific computing.