Supercomputer Center to get $14 million boost: Harried HR staffers get an assist from BeneTrac

San Diego Business Journal, August 29, 2005 by Jessica Long

The world's largest, most comprehensive computer network that makes it possible for scientists and researchers to share vital resources is about to get even bigger, thanks to a $150 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.

The San Diego Supercomputer Center, a research unit of UC San Diego, will receive more than $14 million from the grant pool as a major contributor to the network known as the Extensible Terascale Facility, or TeraGrid. The $14 million coming to UCSD will go to cover operation, management and user support costs.

In addition to being a high-tech marvel in itself, TeraGrid can be a tool for future high-tech and biotech innovators, according to Arden Bement Jr., director of the National Science Foundation.

"TeraGrid unites the science and engineering community so that larger, more complex scientific questions can be answered," Bement said. "Solving these larger challenges will in turn motivate the development of the next generation of cyber infrastructure. This is a win-win situation consistent with the NSF's mission to keep science and engineering at the frontier."

TeraGrid started four years ago, thanks in part to a $53 million grant the National Science Foundation gave to the San Diego Supercomputer Center in August 2001.

At the time of its inception, the center was only one of four TeraGrid contributors. Today, there are eight: Argonne National Laboratory/University of Chicago; Indiana University; National Center for Computing Applications; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center; Purdue University; Texas Advanced Computing Center; and of course, the San Diego Supercomputer Center.