Giuseppe Barca is an Associate Professor in Digital Innovation and High-Performance Computing at the School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne. An expert at the intersection of high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and digital chemistry, Giuseppe specializes in pioneering computational approaches for accelerated drug discovery.

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From 2018 to 2023, Giuseppe led Australia’s involvement in the U.S. Department of Energy’s prestigious Exascale Computing Project (ECP), collaborating with leading institutions (Ames, Georgia Tech, Oak Ridge, Argonne National Labs) and industry giants (NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, Cray). His team delivered the first quantum-accurate biomolecular simulations at exascale, overcoming longstanding bottlenecks in drug design.

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As Chief Investigator of the Pawsey Centre for Extreme-scale Readiness (PaCER) project (2021–2023), Giuseppe spearheaded international collaborations resulting in the Extreme-scale Electronic Structure System (EXESS), a pioneering software package enabling large-scale quantum molecular modelling.​

 

Giuseppe's innovations resulted in four consecutive world records (2020–2024) for the largest quantum chemical simulations, lately harnessing over 35,000 GPUs on Oak Ridge’s Frontier exascale supercomputer. These accomplishments were recognized internationally with the 2024 ACM Gordon Bell Prize—the highest global accolade in HPC—for enabling the first scientific application to achieve exaflop/s performance, and for enabling wave-function-based quantum molecular simulation at unprecedented scale and speed .

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In 2023, Giuseppe co-founded QDX Technologies, a deep-tech company dedicated to accelerating drug discovery by integrating quantum-accurate molecular simulations and advanced AI methodologies. As Head of Research, Giuseppe leads an interdisciplinary team developing innovative computational platforms that significantly enhance precision, speed, and cost-effectiveness in therapeutic design. Headquartered in Melbourne, with additional operations in Singapore and Canberra, QDX Technologies actively collaborates with biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners globally, translating academic innovations into practical solutions for industry.