The GWDG is a joint enterprise of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and the Max Planck Society. It is the IT centre for the University of Göttingen and a computing and IT competence centre for the Max Planck Society and it provides a broad selection of services for scientific data processing. Founded in 1970 it employs more than 150 staff members: scientists, IT-specialists and technicians.

Building and operating the infrastructure for eScience is a major responsibility for GWDG. Computing resources, storage und archives for data and the connectivity within the Göttingen Campus (GC) and into the internet are the basic services provided from GWDG in this respect. GWDG cooperates closely with all IT providers in the GC, who build their eScience applications on GWDGs basic infrastructure services. As an IT competence centre the GWDG advises and supports the associated institutes with regard to all questions concerning scientific data processing. Together with the Göttingen State und University Library (SUB) the GWDG is leading the Göttingen eResearch Alliance, that supports researchers in the GC in issues of digital research.

Research and development in the area of applied computer science is an important issue for GWDG enabling the integration of new IT technologies into useful services for the scientists. Main activities are in the fields of Grid and Cloud technologies, virtualisation of compute and storage services and data management for the preservation of scientific data.