IBM Donation Increases Computing Power, Storage Capacity in UB Supercomputing Center

BUFFALO, N.Y -- IBM, a partner since day one in the University at Buffalo's Center for Computational Research (CCR), is positioning UB's outstanding supercomputing facility for even greater growth by donating equipment worth more than $640,000.

The gift from IBM, a corporation that believes investing in computers for research makes for good business, brings the total equipment donation from IBM to the center to just under $2 million.

The equipment upgrade, including 14 4-way 375MHz Power3 thin nodes and an 8-way 222MHz Power3 high node, will increase the power of CCR's IBM SP supercomputer almost threefold, while also significantly increasing its storage capacity.

"We are partnering with the University at Buffalo to continue building a world-class computational facility that will support the university's expanding research and our collaborative projects," said Michael J. Cadigan, vice president of manufacturing and procurement for the ESG Group at IBM.

Cadigan added: "We also believe that providing IBM technology gives us an advantage when recruiting UB's best and brightest students because it gives the students a chance to use and become familiar with our products and we get a chance to know the students."

Russ Miller, CCR director and UB professor of computer science and engineering, said the upgrade will "provide a significant amount of additional computation to our users, particularly those working on large problems in areas that include computational chemistry, biology and fluid dynamics."

He continued: "The partnership with IBM is important to the success of CCR. IBM is a leader in the field of high-end computing. In addition to providing leading-edge hardware and software, IBM also has critical research divisions in areas of interest to UB, including bioinformatics, parallel computing, networking and compilers."

Established in January 1999, CCR was made possible by gifts of more than $1 million each from IBM and Silicon Graphics, Inc.; $1 million in funding from the State University of New York; a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, and a gift of more than $400,000 in computer equipment from Sun Microsystems. UB made an initial investment of approximately $1.5 million to create and support the center.

To date, more than $11 million in grants and $5 million in donations from vendors have been awarded to UB to support research carried out using CCR facilities. More than 70 research groups that span a wide range of academic departments from anthropology, architecture and art to industrial engineering, marketing and mathematics are using the center.

In addition to its original corporate partners, CCR has worked with several other businesses and organizations, including the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, M&T Bank, Occidental Chemical, Nortel Networks, Myricom and Alias/Wavefront.

CCR also has developed a two-semester course in computational science, provided summer workshops for high school students and worked with Western New York community leaders evaluating various options for replacing or supplementing the Peace Bridge.