Cambridge will design the complete computing system for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the world’s largest radio telescope, turning raw signals from millions of antennas into usable astronomical data. The SKA will generate more data per day than the entire global internet traffic. No existing computing infrastructure can handle that volume. This project addresses the fundamental engineering challenge of building a processing pipeline that can ingest, calibrate, and store exabytes of radio signals without crashing or losing information. Without this design work, the telescope cannot function. If the design succeeds, the SKA will map the universe in unprecedented detail—tracing the formation of the first stars and galaxies, testing theories of dark energy, and searching for signs of life beyond Earth. The computing architecture developed here may also influence future high-performance data systems used in climate modelling, genomics, or industrial sensor networks. This is primarily fundamental science. The immediate payoff is a working telescope that answers questions about the cosmos. Past investments in similar large-scale computing infrastructure have yielded unexpected spin-offs in data compression, signal processing, and distributed computing.
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This grant is in support of the detailed design work for the SKA to be undertaken at the University of Cambridge. The SKA has now entered the detailed design phase. The Office of the SKA Organisation published a request for proposals in 2013. Cambridge responded to this request as the lead of the Science Data Processor consortium to undertake the work package of the same name and a major part of the Low-frequency Aperture Array and Mi-frequency aperture array consortia work packages led by ASTRON. All responses to the RfP were evaluated and scrutinised by the SKAO and Board of the SKA Organisation. After negotiation with the SKA Organisation all of the consortia in which Cambridge lead or or involved were successful and awarded the work by the SKA Organisation. This application is for the funding to undertake this work as awarded by the SKA Organisation. Cambridge leads the Science Data Processor Consortium and associated work package. This work package will deliver the design for the complete software and computing processing system excluding the real-time control. As lead organisation Cambridge will manage the delivery across the entire consortium and critically provide the project manager, project engineer and project scientist. Key elements of the design that will be delivered directly from Cambridge include (but are not limited to) the overall architecture, system design, the prototyping of the software and hardware systems including the management of the open architecture lab, all management documentation, and the full documentation sets for preliminary and critical design reviews. In addition Cambridge manages the industrial contracts which form a critical element of the delivery. Cambridge also has a major role in the Low-frequency Aperture array and Mid-frequency Aperture Array work packages and associated consortia. Here we provide the system engineer in both cases and have responsibility for the overall system design and design of the low-frequency aperture-array element itself, SKALA.
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