260 



Drbana-Champalgn, IL., U.S.A. 



NATIONAL ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING CENTER 

 University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign 



"Big Science" Descriptor ; Supercomputers for scientific and engineering 

 research 



Description of Facility/Instrument : The facility will be centered 

 around a Cray XMP/24 supercomputer with four million words of 

 memory and an additional 128 million words of high-speed memory 

 on a solid state device. There will be a close connection between 

 this center and the newly-established Center for Supercomputer 

 Research and Development in Urbana, which is involved in the 

 design of supercomputer hardware and software. The facility will 

 be supported partially by the State of Illinois. 



Date of Construction ; Late 1985 or early 1986. 



Construction Cost ; 1984 $$ : $76.1 million 



Present International Cooperation 



Nationality(s) of Ownership : U.S. 

 Nationality(8) of Operational Funding ; U.S. 

 Nationality(s) of Management Staff : Not yet operational. 

 Nationality(s) of Researchers : Not yet operational. 



Other Information : In response to the expressed need of U.S. researchers 

 for access to supercomputers, the National Science Foundation 

 (NSF) announced in February 1985 the selection of four institutions 

 that will receive approximately $200 million over the next five 

 years to establish and operate National Advanced Scientific Com- 

 puting Centers. Awards will range from $7 million to $13 million 

 per year over the grant period. Each award will have a cost- 

 sharing provision in which the States, industries, and institutions 

 will contribute an amount that will approximately double the NSF 

 award. The centers should be available for use by the scientific 

 and engineering research communities in late 1985 or early 1986. 

 Plans call for the supercomputer centers to be connected via a 

 nationwide highspeed data network that will allow researchers to 

 communicate with the centers from any location. In addition to 

 providing high quality advanced computing systems for researchers, 

 the centers will educate students and researchers in the use of 

 supercomputers . 



The cost includes five years of funding for facility opera- 

 tions and maintenance. The NSF component of the funding for this 

 facility will be $43.9 million. The remainder will be supplied 

 from local sources. 



See also the NATIONAL ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING CENTERS 

 to be established at the Tohn Von Neumann Center at Princeton 

 University; the Center for Theory and Simulation in Science and 

 Engineering at Cornell University; and the University of California 

 at San Diego. 



