KNOXVILLE, Tenn., April 8, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new $65 million supercomputer is expected to catapult the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley to the lead in the worldwide race to find new medicines, materials and answers to environmental problems.
The computer, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), will be capable of nearly 1,000 trillion calculations a second. It will be built and operated by the University of Tennessee (UT) at nearby Oak Ridge National Lab, which UT manages in partnership with Battelle. The new machine - especially when considered alongside Jaguar, the ultra powerful computer already housed at ORNL - makes the Innovation Valley a world leader in supercomputing.
"This permits us to work side by side with the Department of Energy's supercomputing capability that's already here for open science," said Sen. Lamar Alexander.
"The Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley is home to a high concentration of engineering expertise and high tech companies, many of them based on ideas developed at UT and ORNL," said Knoxville Chamber Executive Vice President Rhonda Rice. "Clearly, this boosts our high tech future."
The supercomputer will also be a key component of UT-ORNL's leadership of a nationwide computing consortium.
It is the largest research grant ever received by the University of Tennessee.
The greatly expanded supercomputing capability, said UT President John Petersen, will have "far-reaching positive impact on economic development for the entire state."
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen praised the project as a "terrific strength for our state."
"The best-in-the-world facility in East Tennessee is going to provide untold opportunities in the years ahead," he said.
The grant, which comes from the NSF's Office of Cyber Infrastructure, includes $30 million for computer hardware as well as $35 million toward operation of the system over the next five years.
Economic development throughout the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley is coordinated by a regional partnership - Innovation Valley Inc. - which includes the Blount County Chamber of Commerce, Knoxville Chamber, Loudon County Economic Development Agency, Oak Ridge Economic Partnership, Roane Alliance and Tellico Reservoir Development Agency. Forbes magazine has again ranked the Knoxville area one of the ten best metros in the country for business based on business costs, education, cost of living, crime rates, and job and income growth. For more information about the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley, visit http://www.innovationvalleyinc.org/.
Knoxville Chamber
