GOVERNMENT

The Cyprus Institute and the University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) announced today that they will work together to establish the Computation-based Science and Technology Research Center (CaSToRC) at the Cyprus Institute. The CaSToRC will be a regional leader in computational science, engineering, and technology research.

The new research center was officially approved by the Cyprus Institute's Board of Trustees on February 7. The center will provide high-performance computing resources to researchers in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean region, as well as offering economic development, research, and educational programs.

"This center is the first of its kind in the Eastern Mediterranean—providing the indispensible computing resources researchers need to be at the forefront of science and engineering today. It will be a catalyst for the region, helping realize the mission of at the Cyprus Institute," said Edouard Brezin, the chairman of the Cyprus Institute's board and former president of the French Academy of Sciences.

The approved plan anticipates that by 2010, the CaSToRC will be home to tens of teraflops of computing power (each "teraflop" is one trillion calculations every second). By 2013, it will be home to hundreds of teraflops of computing power. These resources will be used to tackle critical research questions in environmental science and engineering, digital cultural heritage, bioinformatics, scientific computing, and other basic sciences.

To start the CaSToRC, the Cyprus Institute will leverage NCSA's expertise in designing data centers and installing, operating, and delivering groundbreaking science using high-performance computers. NCSA is helping plan the center's first supercomputer, its data center, and its education and research programs.

"We're pleased to be part of such an exciting undertaking," said Thom Dunning, NCSA's director. "Part of NCSA's mandate is to ensure that the advances that we make are adopted by the scientific community. What better way to do that than to work closely with an international partner as they start up a center with aspirations and ideas that dovetail so closely with ours."

NCSA and the CaSToRC will also share faculty and students, with a set of PhD students splitting their time between the University of Illinois and the Cyprus Institute.

"The relationship between the University of Illinois and the Cyprus Institute is special and represents a strong history of international collaboration for both of us," said Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman. "This will be an opportunity to work with some of the best and the brightest in the place where Europe and the Middle East meet."

At the Cyprus Institute, international partners have aided in the early development of two other centers. The Energy, Environment, and Water Research Center is a collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Science and Technology in Archaeology Research Center is a collaboration with France's Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France (headquartered at the Louvre).

Illinois, meanwhile, is home to a host of international collaborations. Most recently, the university established a major research center in Singapore with the nation's Agency for Science, Technology and Research. The Advanced Digital Sciences Center will be focused on breakthrough innovations in information technology that are expected to have a major impact in transforming human beings' use of information technology.