The University of Tennessee garners a distinction in supercomputing at the world’s leading industry conference held this week in Seattle. UT was named as one of Microsoft’s new Institutes of High Performance Computing. UT's designation as one of 10 universities worldwide to be named a Microsoft Institute of High-Performance Computing is accompanied by an annual award of $300,000, along with computer hardware and software. UT is joined in this award by a group of institutions that include Cornell University, University of Virginia, Tokyo Institute of Technology and University of Stuttgart (Germany), among others. Microsoft’s gift offers UT scientists an important level of flexibility in the research they conduct using the donated funds and equipment. Jack Dongarra, who directs UT’s Innovative Computing Lab, noted that Microsoft’s interest in supercomputing also has practical applications for consumers. “There's a trickle-down effect that occurs with supercomputing,” said Dongarra. “The things we do at the high end eventually find their way into the commercial end, and ultimately into the home computing market.” "Through our partnership, UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are at the international forefront in computational science. We will work to build on that leadership position," said David Milhorn, UT vice president for research. “We see this as a strong indication of the kind of traction being gained with the University of Tennessee/Oak Ridge partnership." UT/ORNL joint efforts in computational sciences will benefit from the laboratory’s leadership in the effort to build the world's most powerful non-classified supercomputer, which will be housed at ORNL. The leadership class computing will enable breakthrough discoveries in biology, fusion energy, climate prediction, nanoscience and many other fields. One of the premier UT/ORNL collaborations is the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences (JICS). The institute, which moved in May 2004 to a new $10 million, state-funded facility on the ORNL campus, represents a world-class center for research, education, and training in computational science and engineering. Uniquely positioned to take full advantage of the enormous computing capacity at ORNL, JICS currently includes three joint research faculty positions. Both UT and ORNL have pledged new joint faculty positions to support JICS’ research and educational programs. Zacharia serves as interim co-director of JICS, along with Jesse Poore, UT Ericsson-Harlan D. Mills professor of software engineering and director of the UT/ORNL Science Alliance, a state-funded Center of Excellence. Joint UT-ORNL faculty appointments at JICS include Robert Harrison, computational chemistry and Igor B. Jouline, computational biology and bioinformatics. Joint faculty in computational fields through the UT-ORNL Science Alliance are Dongarra and Poore as well as Charles L. Merkle, H.H. Arnold Chair in Computational Mechanics at UT Space Institute.