A New Engine for Discovery Unveiled at ACE Uganda's Supercomputing Facility.

Every day, researchers generate vast amounts of health data; from genomic sequences and disease surveillance records to artificial intelligence models. Turning that data into life-saving discoveries, however, requires one critical ingredient: computing power.

On 29 May 2025, the African Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data-Intensive Sciences (ACE-Uganda) officially launched its upgraded High-Performance Computing (HPC) Cluster at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), Makerere University, marking a major milestone for data-driven health research in Africa.

The upgraded system expands ACE-Uganda's computing capacity fivefold, with 56 compute nodes, more than 15,000 processing cores, and 5 terabytes of memory. What once took researchers days or even weeks to analyze can now be completed in a matter of hours, accelerating research across genomics, artificial intelligence, and computational biology.

The launch brought together key partners, including U.S. Ambassador William W. Popp, IDI Executive Director Dr. Andrew Kambugu, and ACE-Uganda Director Dr. Daudi Jjingo, highlighting the growing collaboration between Uganda and the United States in advancing scientific research.

The upgraded facility will support research into some of Africa's most pressing health challenges, including HIV, antimicrobial resistance, cancer, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases. It will also strengthen AI-driven research, protein structure prediction, and genomic analysis, while complementing ACE-Uganda's innovative virtual reality platform for visualizing complex biological structures.

Beyond its technical capabilities, the HPC cluster is an investment in scientific leadership. Researchers and students across the region will have access to world-class computing infrastructure, enabling them to analyze larger datasets, collaborate more effectively, and pursue ambitious research without depending entirely on overseas computing resources.

Supported through the ACE Consortium with contributions from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIAID), the University of Texas at Austin, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and Makerere University, the upgraded cluster reflects a shared commitment to strengthening research capacity on the continent.

As Africa's health challenges become increasingly data-intensive, the new HPC facility positions ACE-Uganda to help researchers turn complex data into discoveries that improve lives, placing world-class computational power in the hands of scientists.