ECONOMICS

By J. William Bell, NCSA Senior Science Writer -- Caterpillar and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications' partnership goes back to 1989. Through the years of Caterpillar's participation in NCSA's Private Sector Program, the partnership has constantly grown, matured, and evolved -- just as Caterpillar's equipment has. Together, the world's largest manufacturer of heavy equipment and engines and the world's premier high-performance computing research center have tackled some of industry's most complex problems, advancing the state of the art in virtual prototyping and immersive visualization, design simulation, knowledge discovery, and knowledge management.