From the Princeton Weekly Bulletin, November 3, 1997
Intel gift to support research initiatives
The University has received a $2.7 million grant from the Intel Corp. that will support a variety of research initiatives through the donation of high-speed computers and multimedia systems. The grant, which will support projects in four departments, will be directed by Provost Jeremiah Ostriker, Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy. Professors of Computer Science David Dobkin and Kai Li will serve as coordinators for the program.
The Intel grant is part of the company's Technology for Education 2000 program, which has awarded $90 million to 25 universities. The grants support research in fields ranging from the sciences to business, public policy and the arts. Through the program, Princeton will acquire state-of-the-art equipment, networks and software, tailored to meet the needs of research projects that require increasing levels of computing power.
The departments of Astrophysical Sciences, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering will benefit from the recent Intel grant. The new initiative is composed of two parts: a high-performance computing component and a multimedia systems and applications component.
Extra power
In the high-performance computing component, Princeton will construct several computer clusters over three years. In the first year, three small clusters will be established, one each for Astrophysical Sciences and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and a third to extend the Scalable High-Performance Really Inexpensive Multiprocessor project, known as SHRIMP, in the Computer Science Department.
In the next two years, Computer Science will construct a cluster of 16 next-generation servers on both commercial and customized networks, that will be shared by the three departments to study the scalability of systems and applications. The networked cluster will be used as a computing environment for large-scale experiments in astrophysics, computational fluid dynamics and computational biology.
The multimedia systems and applications component will support ongoing research in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering departments, which will allow for new-generation applications in audio, music and computer-human interfaces, three-dimensional computer graphics, digital libraries and video processing, and Internet security.
"We are very excited about the possibilities opened up by this grant," Ostriker said. "In my work in computational cosmology, for example, the technical requirements for future progress are daunting. Working with Intel may provide the extra power that we need to crack some of the major outstanding computational challenges."
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