Ilifu, a big data infrastructure for data-intensive research, enables South African researchers to be world leaders in the strategic science domains of astronomy and bioinformatics. Hosted at UCT ICTS and operated by IDIA, a partnership of UCT, UWC, UP and NWU.

The original ilifu project (2017-2023, DIRISA Tier 2) was completed in 2023. Ilifu is now fully funded by the IDIA partner universities. Our goal is to build capacity and expertise in data intensive research within the South African university research community to enable South African leadership in MeerKAT and MeerKAT+ science in preparation for the SKA Observatory era. As such, resources are strictly dedicated to astronomy-focused initiatives, with the exception of select bioinformatics projects that have contributed additional funds and compute hardware.

Partners