News Library
CAMPUSES TO BE SUPERCOMPUTER HUBS
Published on January 4, 2001
Author: HENRY L. DAVIS and CHET BRIDGER
© The Buffalo News Inc.
One of the sparks to transform Buffalo's economy will come from supercomputers and the complex problems they solve, from designing new drugs to modeling weather patterns.
That is the vision outlined Wednesday in Gov. George E. Pataki's multimillion-dollar plan to use government funds to try to piggyback onto the growth of new high-technology jobs. In his annual State of the State message, the governor said New York would form university-based Centers of Excellence -- starting in Buffalo, Rochester and Albany -- to create jobs by supporting research projects that link academia and private industry. For Buffalo, the governor talked of creating a Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, which will largely build on the work already under way at the University at Buffalo's Center for Computational Research and its partners. "This is very welcome news for us," said UB President William R. Greiner. "It represents new thinking on how to build the economy. There's more emphasis on 21st century kinds of industry." Pataki proposed to spend $283 million on the centers over the next five years. He estimated that this would bring $700 million in additional funds from the federal government, universities and private industry. Greiner said it is unclear how UB would spend the money because details of the proposal will not be available until the governor releases his executive budget. "The funds could be used for faculty, space or equipment, but we don't know yet whether the governor is talking about providing operating or capital funds, or both. We also don't know whether there will be limitations." Nevertheless, he and others expressed enthusiasm. "This is a great opportunity for Western New York," said George DeTitta, chief executive officer of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, a key partner with the UB center. Hauptman-Woodward specializes in determining the structure of important proteins, such as insulin. This information then can be used to design drugs based on the molecules with which they interact. DeTitta said he believes that Pataki's estimate of the center's leveraging an additional $700 million over five years is "very conservative." Pataki proposed similar centers in Rochester -- for photonics and optoelectronics, the marriage of light and electronic technologies -- and in Albany, for nanoelectronics, the design of molecule-size devices. The Rochester center would involve Kodak, Corning and other businesses affiliated with the University at Rochester. The Albany center would include the State University at Albany and such industrial partners as IBM. If approved by the Legislature, the governor's plan calls for other centers to open in the future on Long Island and in New York City. UB established the computational research facility in 1999, dramatically transforming the university from a campus without a supercomputer into one of the top academic supercomputing sites in the United States. The center, which is also affiliated with Roswell Park Cancer Institute, received a handful of initial grants from the National Science Foundation, Sun Microsystems and IBM. A $1.2 million grant from IBM, coupled with $1 million from the state, was used to buy the newest generation of the company's Deep Blue supercomputer that beat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997. It is one of only a handful of such machines in an academic laboratory in the country. The center also features a Silicon Graphics supercomputer similar to the machines used for protecting the nation's nuclear stockpile and creating such animated movies as "Toy Story." The computer also excels at modeling global climate, wildfires, disease epidemics, automobile crashes and experimental drugs. Increasingly, private companies are turning to supercomputers to solve complex problems or to make their own data more meaningful. One of the major focuses of so-called computational science is on the knowledge and techniques required to perform computer simulation, such as visualizing how an experimental drug works. Supercomputers also have become essential for storing and making sense of huge databases, such as the data collected in recent years on the human genome. "Part of what we do is to enable research by others who need supercomputers and the expertise on how to use them," said Russ Miller, center director. Many people might have first learned of the center last year when it created three-dimensional computer models of the proposed Peace Bridge spans, but the center's researchers have their hands in a number of other projects. Tops Friendly Markets, for instance, is using supercomputers to study how customers use its stores, Miller said. A local bank is examining its records to determine whether it can predict customer investment decisions and banking habits. One of the higher-profile projects involves work on a virtual-reality glove capable of mimicking the sense of touch and connected to a massive medical database that could revolutionize the way doctors get trained and treat patients. "We are in a position to enable a lot of different disciplines to use computational science, particularly to visualize events or structures," Miller said. Businesses to be partners Other companies expected to develop partnerships with Buffalo's new Center of Excellence are Praxair, an industrial gas company with a plant in Tonawanda; Life Technologies, a Maryland-based biotechnology company with a Grand Island laboratory; and Advanced Refractory Technologies, or ART, a Buffalo company that manufactures packaging for telecommunications components. Robert Lashway, vice president of marketing for ART, said his company plans to conduct research in microelectronics and packaging at the center. The company, with 150 local employees, makes hermetically sealed packaging for telecommunications components. ART will ultimately seek to develop new products through the research, which would help the company expand its local employment base, he said. A similar biotechnology plan offered last month by Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, a Rensselaer County Republican and Pataki ally, would spend about $250 million, but it envisions only $250 million or so in additional outside funding. On Wednesday, Bruno said that he sees Pataki's plan as complementing and adding to his December proposal. Pataki said government is not the driving force behind these high-tech industries: "What's innovative today could be obsolete tomorrow, and government shouldn't decide which is which. But government can, should and must create an atmosphere that allows these emerging new industries to flourish." Albany Bureau Chief Tom Precious contributed to this report.<
Search again:
