Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences News Conference
Announcement Remarks for New $38 Million Institute
The University of Texas at Austin
March 10, 2003
I am pleased today to announce that UT Austin is launching a new institute known as the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences. This institute, whose acronym is ICES, will propel this University into the role of major player in setting the national and global agenda in the critically important arena of computational engineering and science.
I am gratified that UT Austin is on the leading edge of this technical frontier. Computational engineering and science are arenas that will affect virtually every aspect of our lives in the coming century. Without a doubt, the technological and economic advancement of our state and nation hinges on these critical fields of endeavor.
In conjunction with ICES, UT Austin is acquiring two of the most powerful high performance computing systems dedicated to academic research in the world. One will be a cluster provided by Cray, Inc., and Dell Computer, with more than 600 processors and a peak performance of more than 3 trillion operations per second. This is the equivalent of a 3 Teraflop computer.
The second computing system is an IBM Power4 with more than 200 processors and more than one Teraflop.
This new infrastructure will be integrated into a new campus computing grid, which will in turn be connected to emerging regional and national grids. These grids will allow researchers here at UT Austin to harness the collective computational power of their own workstations together with the computational power of other computers and other devices – such as microscopes and telescopes – on the grid.
This kind of shared computing – in which computing power is shifted to where it’s needed and strengthened through a grid-like network – is the next big development in technology. Grid computing is expected to go mainstream in the very near future – and it will revolutionize the information technology industry. Its impact is likely to be equivalent to, or even more dramatic than, that of the Internet 10 years ago.
ICES will be home to several new research units in distributed and grid computing, computational biology, biomedical science and engineering, computational materials research, and many others. Because of these expanded research efforts and the accompanying boost in computing power, UT Austin will have the technological muscle to do highly complex calculations and simulations. These are vital for the advancement of basic science.
As an example, in medicine, this advanced computing capability will enable heart surgeons to simulate tissue beneath the skin of a patient and to visualize the flow of blood through the body. They will also able to simulate various treatments and determine the most effective options.
In oil and gas exploration, computational scientists will be able to simulate and visualize the motion of oil and gas underneath the surface of an oilfield and to pinpoint more accurately where wells should be located.
To drive the technical inquiry at this new institute, the University is creating four new endowed chairs. There will be one in distributed and grid computing; one in computational biology or biomedical science and engineering; one in the area of computational materials science and engineering; and one in a computational science area yet to be determined.
ICES is being made possible by a $38 million investment – $15 million from an anonymous donor, $8 million from industrial partners, and $15 million in university matching funds.
The industrial partners are Dell Computer; Cray, Incorporated; IBM; Force10 Networks; Microsoft; Nortel; Platform Computing; StorageTek; Sun; TeraBurst; Myricom, Inc.; and United Devices.
Of the $15 million provided by the University, $4 million will be raised from other private sources to match the anonymous donor’s funding for the four new chairs. An additional $7 million in operating funds will be provided over the next five years, and we expect most of that amount to be financed by an increase in research grants that the institute will naturally attract. An additional $4 million will go to complete the now unfinished fourth floor of the ACES building, which will house the new institute.
It is natural in this time of budget pressure for many to wonder why the University would be making this commitment now. There are several answers, but first among them is that technical leadership at a national and international level is critical to the health of our state.
The last time I checked, microelectronics and software provided the largest slice of the employment picture in Texas. The people of our state have a big, personal stake in the future of advanced computing, advanced applications, and network development. And it is critical that this University support them by maintaining – even strengthening – its position of leadership.
Texas needs a serious place at the national agenda-setting table, and this is what it will take to secure it. Times are not good, but we still have to move forward.
Doing that would not be possible in this instance without the support of our anonymous donor and our industrial partners. All of Texas – not just this University – needs to be grateful for their generosity and participation now.
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