The computing research service is designed and provided by the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI), a collaboration between Niwa, Landcare and the Universities of Auckland and Otago.
"Computational needs of the science community are growing exponentially and from a range of key areas from natural hazards and climate science, through to computational chemistry, astronomy, and biomedical research," Goldsmith said.
Niwa has signed an agreement with Seattle-based global supercomputer leader Cray to purchase the new supercomputers on behalf of the NeSI partners.
The institute was investing $18 million in the new supercomputer capability which will enable its scientists - including the largest team of weather and climate scientists in the country - to provide better information on important issues such as how climate change will affect New Zealand.
"The ability of the new supercomputers to process vast amounts of data in very short spaces of time will also enable us to build more precise forecasting tools to help farmers and environmental managers make more informed decisions using the best information available," Niwa chief executive John Morgan said.
"Industries that are weather-sensitive - such as the energy sector, farming, horticulture and tourism - will benefit directly from Niwa's ability to make more accurate and more specific forecasts."
The new supercomputers would also allow Niwa to improve early warnings of the effects of severe events, such as flooding and storm surge.
The agreement was for three supercomputers that each offer different capabilities.
One of two computers to be based at High Performance Computing Facility at Niwa's Greta Pt campus - the Cray XC50 - had a theoretical peak performance equivalent to 1.4 trillion calculations per second.
One of the most powerful supercomputers in the world for scientific calculations, the Cray XC50 would be joined by the Cray CS400 to provide research services that will enable scientists to conduct leading-edge research on the environment and climate simulation, as well as computational chemistry, engineering, data analytics and biomedical research among other scientific disciplines.
Together, the new supercomputers have up to 13 times the computing capability and more than six times the storage capacity of their predecessors.
The replacement for FitzRoy has a theoretical peak performance of 1.425 PetaFLOPS - equivalent to 1.425 trillion calculations per second.
Altogether, the new supercomputers will provide more than 33,500 compute cores - equivalent to about 16,000 laptops - and enough storage to hold 3 million DVDs online and 8 million DVDs offline.
They collectively weigh 23 tonnes, but those 16,000 laptops would weigh nearly 40 tonnes.
They are also significantly more energy efficient, and will use only about two-thirds of the electricity of Niwa's current supercomputer, and they will also occupy less space.
"To have access to such incredibly high-powered supercomputers vastly boosts Niwa's capabilities and is a huge step forward for New Zealand science," Morgan said.
Installation for the new supercomputers begins in August and they are expected to be operational around February.
