3 schools vie to lure NCAR’s supercomputer

BOULDER – Three universities along the Front Range said they will aggressively compete to be the main partner for the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s proposed new $75 million supercomputing center.

Officials with the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the Colorado School of Mines in Golden confirmed they have talked with NCAR about locating the new supercomputing facility on their respective campuses.

NCAR Director Tim Killeen told the Business Report in early March that the new center could be as large as 60,000 square feet and require about 10 to 15 acres of land, along with 13 megawatts of electricity. He said NCAR is talking with the three universities and private businesses such as IBM in Boulder as possible educational and financial partners for the project.

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CU Vice Chancellor for Administration Paul Tabolt said the university has talked with NCAR about locating the new facility in its 95-acre CU Boulder Research Park at Colorado Avenue and the Foothills Parkway.

“We’re definitely interested,” Tabolt said. “We have 120 faculty involved in the computational science arena, so a partnership with a supercomputing center like that would be extremely beneficial for CU.”

The new center is expected to begin operations in 2009 and will increase NCAR’s supercomputing power from 15 teraflops (at the existing Mesa Lab in Boulder) to 1,000 teraflops. One teraflop equals one trillion computations per second.

Killeen said the new facility would allow NCAR to move beyond its studies in the field of atmospheric sciences and expand into supercomputing operations for geosciences and social sciences that could benefit governments and private businesses.

The expansion into other sciences is where the School of Mines sees itself as the best partner the new NCAR facility, said John Poate, vice president for research and technology transfer.

“One unique strength is our ties to the industries in the earth sciences and energy sector,” he said. “Their mission plays into our strengths, and we are very enthusiastic about the opportunity.”

Poate said the School of Mines has presented NCAR with several possible locations for the new facility. He added that the school is willing to be “creative” to help fund the new center.

In Fort Collins, Colorado State University has land available for NCAR on its Foothills Campus, said Pat Burns, associate vice president for information technology.

“CSU is very interested in working with NCAR,” Burns said. “Our Atmospheric Science Department already does a lot of computing work with NCAR. There would be a lot of synergies if the new supercomputing center were to be located here.”

Burns said the city of Fort Collins is interested in working with NCAR to provide its energy needs for the new center.

“One incentive is that energy costs are pretty low up here,” Burns said.

All three university officials said they think it’s important to keep the project in Colorado. Killeen said NCAR is fairly committed to pick a location along the Front Range. He added that NCAR will continue to operate its headquarters from the Mesa Lab in Boulder, no matter where the new supercomputing center is located.

Along with the three universities, a few private businesses may compete for a partnership stake in NCAR’s new supercomputing facility.

Officials with IBM in Boulder have talked with NCAR about the new center but declined to comment on the talks until any kind of agreement, if any, has been reached. NCAR already uses numerous IBM supercomputers at its existing Mesa Lab in Boulder, including the latest IBM Blue Gene supercomputer.

Boulder Economic Council President Sean Maher said he helped make the connection between IBM and NCAR.

“I think the IBM site is a logical one,” Maher said. “We want to keep it (the new supercomputing center) in Boulder.”

Further details and possible partner announcements for the new NCAR supercomputing center are expected to be made by the end of 2006.