Centre for High-Performance Intelligent Computing (CHIC)

Welcome

Welcome to the Centre for High-Performance Intelligent Computing (CHIC).

Intelligent, high performance, reliable computer systems are fundamental to solving grand challenges in areas such as transport, health, security and energy. The Centre aims to research and develop new methods and technology in computer science that will underpin solutions to these major societal challenges.

Computer systems underlie the fabric of modern society, from entertainment to energy supply, communications to commerce. In addressing the major societal challenges of today, the key limitations of current computer technology have to be solved before it can provide the carrier for these challenges' solutions. The Centre focuses on three aspects crucial to the success of future computer systems:

• Computer interface: to research towards the seamless communication among computer systems, and between humans and computer systems. Examples include the development of self-describing languages to help in interoperability, or the use of image processing to detect security threats from CCTV, or the application of psychology to investigate human behavioural changes in socio-technical systems.
   
• Computer architecture: to research into hardware and software technologies that guarantee the supply of powerful and robust computer services. Examples include the use of automated scheduling to optimise workflow among multi-processor systems, or the use of mathematical techniques to prove correctness of system properties.
   
• Computer intelligence: to research towards developing services which can represent and reason with knowledge. Examples include the development of deliberative reasoning capabilities for autonomous control systems, or the application of machine learning techniques to help an agent acquire declarative knowledge of its environment, or the use of planning algorithms to in the automated management of multi-modal transport.

The Centre's research covers both theory and application, and is arranged along these three strands.