UOIT and research partners to benefit from national funding boost
January 9, 2007
SHARCNET, an association comprised of UOIT and 15 other Ontario research institutions as well as industry partners such as Hewlett-Packard, Platform Computing, Bell Canada, and Nortel Networks, in collaboration with six other high-performance computing consortia across Canada, has received an $88-million funding boost from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada to be used towards building its national high-performance computing (HPC) capacity.
In addition to the $88 million in funding being given by the CFI and NSERC, the dollars are also being matched through contributions from provincial and industry sources, bringing the total boost to HPC capacity to close to $180 million.
"This represents a major leap forward for Canada's HPC community," said Dr. Eliot Phillipson, president and chief executive officer of the CFI. "This is a truly national effort, with all seven HPC consortia across the country collaborating as full partners in this project. This investment will provide researchers with the tools to solve large-scale computational problems that we could not even have imagined tackling 10 years ago."
This funding will also allow SHARCNET to expand its infrastructure to remote partner sites, provide more enhanced visualization capability, and become a major player in the new pan-Canadian network. Combined with earlier investments, SHARCNET has received over $120 million to date and ranks as one of the most powerful HPC centres in Canada.
SHARCNET is leading the development and deployment of an HPC grid that is designed to accelerate the production of research results in the Science, Engineering, Business and Social Sciences fields. The organization is working to link hundreds of computers together to form an HPC network that acts as a significant research tool for its members.
"As a member of SHARCNET since UOIT's startup, we're grateful to the CFI and NSERC for their tremendous financial support," said Dr. William Smith, dean of the UOIT Faculty of Science. "Through SHARCNET's HPC network and our collaborative relationships with our fellow academic colleagues and industry partners, UOIT's researchers have access to countless technology benefits. This significant support will allow us to retain and enhance our role as an effective member of one of the world's most state-of-the art computing consortia."
In addition to the $88 million in funding being given by the CFI and NSERC, the dollars are also being matched through contributions from provincial and industry sources, bringing the total boost to HPC capacity to close to $180 million.
"This represents a major leap forward for Canada's HPC community," said Dr. Eliot Phillipson, president and chief executive officer of the CFI. "This is a truly national effort, with all seven HPC consortia across the country collaborating as full partners in this project. This investment will provide researchers with the tools to solve large-scale computational problems that we could not even have imagined tackling 10 years ago."
This funding will also allow SHARCNET to expand its infrastructure to remote partner sites, provide more enhanced visualization capability, and become a major player in the new pan-Canadian network. Combined with earlier investments, SHARCNET has received over $120 million to date and ranks as one of the most powerful HPC centres in Canada.
SHARCNET is leading the development and deployment of an HPC grid that is designed to accelerate the production of research results in the Science, Engineering, Business and Social Sciences fields. The organization is working to link hundreds of computers together to form an HPC network that acts as a significant research tool for its members.
"As a member of SHARCNET since UOIT's startup, we're grateful to the CFI and NSERC for their tremendous financial support," said Dr. William Smith, dean of the UOIT Faculty of Science. "Through SHARCNET's HPC network and our collaborative relationships with our fellow academic colleagues and industry partners, UOIT's researchers have access to countless technology benefits. This significant support will allow us to retain and enhance our role as an effective member of one of the world's most state-of-the art computing consortia."
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