By Carrie Cox

The person in charge of Australia’s most powerful public research supercomputers is an arts graduate – and his family doesn’t let him forget it.

“The kids just laugh at me sometimes,” muses Mark Stickells, Executive Director of the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre. “I’ll say to them ‘I went to a quantum computing meeting today’ and they say ‘Dad, what on earth do you know about that?’”

But Mr Stickells’ arts degree, completed at UWA back in 1993, laid the foundation for a career that ultimately made him an ideal choice to take the helm at Pawsey in 2018, during what has arguably become the most revolutionary period of technological change since the launch of the internet in the 1990s.

Prior to taking up the role, Mr Stickells worked in multiple domains at the intersection of research and industry, serving as the inaugural Director of Innovation and Engagement at UWA and as a former director of the Energy and Minerals Institute. He has also been publicly recognised for his professional support to agricultural and environmental research and commercialisation and for his commitment to diversity and inclusion. Perhaps most significantly, in the encroaching storm of the AI revolution, Mr Stickells is a passionate believer in the distinction between ‘literacy’ and ‘expertise’ – the need to partner science and technology with critical thought and clear communication.

It’s an ideological position that well suits Pawsey’s gateway position between raw computing and impactful research outcomes. Currently the centre serves more than 4,000 researchers from across Australia and overseas, working on projects as diverse as ocean modelling, drug design, remote after care for hospital patients, new energy sources and even the detection of empathy in videos using neural architecture.

New technological conundrums

There is a moment here that we’re having,” Mr Stickells says, “where the advances in technology are not only unlocking great potential but also fundamentally changing the way science can be done.

We need to be very clear that AI is not wisdom. AI is a tool; it’s parameters and data and algorithms. Wisdom and insight are human qualities alone.

Mark Stickells, Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre Executive Director

 

“Scientists have for generations hypothesised, experimented and generated data and insights, but now digital tools and massive data sets are generating new approaches. And that’s challenging a lot of established conventions across many disciplines.

“There are some scientific domains that historically haven’t used computational methods in their research, but now AI is available to them and offers new tools for potentially every kind of science.”

Though an optimist by nature, Mr Stickells said he was equally cautious about carte blanche approaches to the uptake of AI.

We need to be very clear that AI is not wisdom,” he says. “AI is a tool; it’s parameters and data and algorithms. Wisdom and insight are human qualities alone. AI can make observations but we still need wisdom to make good decisions.

“I applaud the current efforts by the national science agency, CSIRO, to bring government and business together to build ethical frameworks and guidance around the use of AI so that ultimately we don’t end up having its potentially negative aspects entrenched in the way we’ve seen with social media. I mean, if we could go back in time and do social media differently, I think we probably would.”

The race to conserve energy

The expanded energy footprint of an AI-driven world is also a key concern for Mr Stickells and a core business focus for Pawsey. Currently Pawsey’s flagship supercomputer is among the world’s most energy efficient, but the drivers of consumption are quickly becoming exponential.

“ICT and supercomputing are among the biggest users of energy and infrastructure in the world, and I would argue we’ve reached a tipping point,” Mr Stickells says.

“There are more than one million transistors for every single person on Earth, and information technology uses around eight per cent of the world’s electricity. That figure is doubling every 10 years, with most of that consumption ‘out of sight’. Some predictions suggest that if consumption were to stay on this trajectory, IT would use all the energy produced by the world by 2049. We don’t think about this when we’re using Chat GPT on our phones, but we need to.

“For sustainable supercomputing to be possible, our community must pool its resources and learn from each other. We need to focus on sustainable energy, design and engineering, as well as optimised use.”

The Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre is a joint-venture between CSIRO, the National Science Agency, Curtin University, Murdoch University and UWA, and funded by the Federal and State Governments. Mark Stickells was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in 2024 for his service to science and the community.

Read the full issue of the Winter 2024 edition of Uniview [Accessible PDF 12MB]