ACENET has 15 Atlantic university and community college members, and over 1400 users.

We began as a consortium of five universities in Atlantic Canada in 2003, collaborating in support of computationally intense and large scale data-based research within their own institutions. Since then, our membership has grown and so has our mission. Today, ACENET supports Atlantic Canadian researchers in academia, industry, government and non-profits leverage digital research infrastructure and expertise to accelerate discovery, innovation and productivity.

Through our infrastructure, network resources, expertise, and training, we accelerate discovery, helps attract and retain highly qualified people in the region, and equip students from any discipline with foundational skills in the high-demand field of advanced computing.

Clients in the region are connected to resources from across the country through the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (DRAC) and our four regional partners, which together comprise the Alliance Federation. Through the federation, ACENET represents our regional needs and priorities at the national table.

DRAC was created as a result of the federal government’s 2019 investment of  $572M in a new Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy for Canada. It took over the national responsibility for Advanced Research Computing (ARC) from Compute Canada on April 1st, 2022, with an expanded role that includes Research Data Management (previously under the Portage Network) and Research Software (previously under the domain of CANARIE).