National Integrated Cyber Infrastructure System; South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap | 2021 | PMG

"The Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) spoke about the South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap (SARIR) which addressed the Research Infrastructure Ecosystem; the new approach to research infrastructure provision particularly collaborative national platforms; and the work done. It also touched on the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources, which aims to develop and promote the eleven official languages to be capable of expressing all forms of knowledge, and drive their use and function in research and development, education, social transformation, trade, economic and scientific development. The briefing on the National Integrated Cyber Infrastructure System (NICIS) dealt with the implementation of the Big Data Strategy for research, development and innovation; converging technologies; highlights of high performance computing (HPC) systems and the South African National Research Network (SANReN); human capital initiatives; National e-Science Postgraduate Teaching and Training Platform achievements; student cluster competition; cyber security challenge; Datathon challenge and cyber infrastructure roadmap. Committee members asked how well equipped was the infrastructure to dispel cyber-attacks such as that at Transnet; monitoring and oversight of research initiatives; is research infrastructure and cybersecurity investment adequate for South Africa's development trajectory; targets not achieved; funding availability for research infrastructure; sites connected through SANReN; connection of rural areas; plans and funding to increase high performance computing infrastructure and the difference between big data and normal data...."