Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science Minister Greg Combet yesterday commissioned the new supercomputer, supplied by Cray Inc, to the Defence Signals Directorate headquarters in Canberra.

''This new supercomputer represents a cutting-edge capability and was delivered in close collaboration with industry,'' Mr Combet said.

The Defence Signals Directorate is Australia's national agency responsible for collecting foreign signals, intelligence, communications and cyber-security capabilities.

''Intelligence is fundamental to the security of our deployed forces and to wider government in protecting Australia against external threats such as terrorism,'' MrCombet said.

''The Government has made a commitment under the Defence White Paper 2009 to significantly upgrade intelligence and cyber-security capabilities.''

The directorate has used successive generations of Cray supercomputers to keep ahead in its efforts to break the encrypted communications of foreign governments, companies and terrorist and criminal groups.

Mr Combet did not reveal the model or cost of the new Cray supercomputer and gave no indication of its computational power.