ACENET 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. ACENET has 15 Atlantic university and community college members, and over 1300 users. Today, ACENET serves any researcher at any post-secondary institution in the region, as well as government departments and private companies.

Through its infrastructure, network resources, expertise, and training, ACENET accelerates discovery, helps attract and retain highly qualified people in the region, and equips students from any discipline with foundational skills in the high-demand field of supercomputing.

ACENET connects users in our region to resources from across the country through The Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance) - the national organization responsible for advanced research computing - and its four regional partners which together comprise the Alliance Federation. Through the federation, ACENET represents our regional needs and priorities at the national table.

The Alliance (formerly the New Digital Research Infrastructure Organization - NDRIO) 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 1 April, 2022, with an expanded role that also includes Research Data Management (previously under the Portage Network) and Research Software (previously  under the domain of CANARIE).