The Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) provides HPC facilities to researchers at an affordable (or subsidised) cost and pursues projects considered to be in the national interest.

A robust and effective acquisition process, driven by the science and engineering research and educational community and government institutions, is one of the key elements of CHPC strategy.

To help match the HPC systems and services to the needs of the research community, CHPC will work with the research community and vendors to develop a better understanding of the performance requirements associated with a range of science and engineering research applications.

The Vision of the CHPC is planned to be achieved in 5 years, with the start- up phase being concluded in the past 2 years, and the following 3 years focusing on consolidation and growth.

Targets and measures will be organized within the Department of Science and Technology (DST)'s basket-of-measures, which include:

• Human Resource Development (such as transformation, Black and Female Scientists, outreach efforts, numbers of MSc and PhD students and post-doc fellowships),
• S&T excellence (such as publications in international peer-reviewed journals, hosting an international scientific conference),
• Innovation and Learning (such as peer review and benchmarking as part of a learning process),
• Customers and Stakeholders (such as customer and partner usage of the CHPC, government support),
• Finance and Investment (such as achieving commercial income targets, adherence to budget), and
• Operational excellence (such as world-class project management and research processes).

The CHPC is focusing on the following key issues on an ongoing basis in order to accomplish its vision:

• Effective governance
• Development of nodes and partnerships with Tertiary Educational Institutions, research institutes and industry, locally, nationally, in the rest of Africa, and internationally (particularly with developing countries).
• Human resource development, transformation, capacity development, and training.
• Ensuring funding sustainability via government core funding as well as from commercial beneficiaries.
• Developing a critical mass in High Performance Computing (HPC) and people.
• In partnership mode, executing a range of relevant research projects with impact and visible Science and Technology outcomes.
• Provide appropriate support to the nodes and partners.
• Science and Technology excellence and an effective research plan.
• On an ongoing basis ensure (with government and South African National Research Network (SANReN) support), sufficient and affordable bandwidth.
• Develop and implement cutting-edge computational tools.
• Effective and focused marketing, including contributing to public understanding of Science and Technology.