New Jersey Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno today pressed the “power button” on what is expected to become one of the 10 most powerful academic supercomputers in the world at Rutgers University. The symbolic “powering up” ceremony marked the opening of the Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute (RDII), which will house the IBM supercomputer and provide expertise to companies who want to take advantage of its abilities. Only 8 of the nation’s 62 scientific computation centers have industrial partnership programs.
“By making its new supercomputing power available to business, Rutgers is expanding our innovation ecosystem and making New Jersey an even more attractive business location,” said Lt. Governor Guadagno. “There are few places where a company can access such computing power. New Jersey is now one of those places. For small and medium sized companies, Rutgers is putting the benefits of supercomputing within reach. Thanks to Rutgers’ business-oriented approach, high-performance computing will become a significant state asset and the latest reason for businesses to come to, and stay in, New Jersey.”
Unlike other academic institutions that limit access to such computing power for academic purposes, RDII will serve New Jersey companies and actively market to industries – life sciences, financing services and advanced manufacturing – identified in the State Strategic Plan. For New Jersey companies, the supercomputer will help them bring products and services to market years sooner and less expensively than otherwise possible.
“Rutgers today enhances its reputation and its importance to economic growth in New Jersey with the powering up of its academic supercomputer,” said Secretary of Higher Education Rochelle Hendricks. “This invaluable new tool will help to ensure that Rutgers students are equipped to meet the current and emerging workforce demands.”
RDII will also offer students experience working with advanced analytics and state-of-the-art high-performance computing. According to a report by McKinsey and Company, there is a labor shortage of up to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills and 1.5 million managers and analysts that can analyze and make decisions based on a high-performance computer’s results.
“The capabilities of the new supercomputer at Rutgers will help New Jersey enhance its global standing in those industries that will define American commerce in the coming decades. The potential that this project presents for the pharmaceutical, bio-tech and financial services industries in New Jersey is virtually unrivaled,” said Richard L. McCormick, president of Rutgers University.
According to Rutgers, a medical device manufacturer shortened its research and development process by using supercomputing to mathematically fine-tune prototypes and simulate design change combinations for a catheter technology the company acquired. Supercomputing helped a large financial services firm shorten from hours to seconds the time to analyze its credit book and run risk analysis on its entire portfolio. The company can now react quickly to risk changes and explore potential problems before they arise. Researchers for a life sciences company used supercomputing to pinpoint the genetic reasons why some people with rheumatoid arthritis are resistant anti-inflammatory drugs and identify the best ways to create new, effective drugs.
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