Rutgers Teams With IBM to Build Powerful High-Performance Computing Center in New Jersey

Rutgers today formally launched a high-performance computing center at the university focused on the application of "Big Data" analytics in life sciences, finance, and other industries. The center is aimed at improving the economic competitiveness of New Jersey's public and private innovation organizations.

The HPC center will be part of the newly created Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute) and will utilize supercomputing equipment and software provided by IBM in the project's first phase. Rutgers anticipates future expansion of the center will lead to the university having one of the world's most powerful academic supercomputers.

"There is immense potential here because Rutgers and IBM have some of the best minds in high-performance computing," said Michael J. Pazzani, vice president for innovation and economic development and professor of computer science at Rutgers. "The ability to conduct data analysis on a large scale, leveraging the power of 'big data,' has become increasingly essential to innovation and development."

"Such as important is the valuable new resource that we are creating for industry," Pazzani said. "The Institute will collaborate with businesses that need high-performance computing capabilities however can't justify the cost of building their own system."

Parashar is director of Rutgers' Center for Cloud and Autonomic Computing and the Applied Software Systems Laboratory, and associate director of the Center for Information Assurance. He was program director of the National Science Foundation's Office of Cyberinfrastructure, where he managed an roughly $150 million technology portfolio, from 2009 to 2011.

"HPC is a real need because large-scale data is now central to all sciences and engineering," Parashar said. "Science is changing dramatically, becoming very computation and data-intensive. Large-scale computing is now critical for scientists to address technology challenges in diverse fields from biochemistry and genomics to material sciences and climate modeling."

"We intend to develop a premier center that sets a new standard for industry collaboration in high-performance computing," Brennan-Tonetta said. "The institute will be engaging business and provide a valuable resource that goes far beyond hardware and software, offering real expertise and assistance. Industry will be able to come here with a problem involving data analysis and our experts will help them develop a solution."

The Office of the Vice President for Innovation

The Office of the Vice President for Innovation and Economic Development promotes excellence in innovation at Rutgers. Research is fundamental to the university's overall mission and enhances its education and service missions. Research as well contributes to economic development. Rutgers increasingly is engaged in commercialization of research through the transfer of new technologies to industry, contributing to economic development in New Jersey and nationally. From the discovery of streptomycin -- the first cure for tuberculosis -- to the innovation behind Ask.com, Rutgers continues to make a tremendous impact in the commercial world.