Manish Parashar
Professor of electrical and computer engineering
Rutgers University
For years, universities have worked with businesses to produce joint research and educational programs. But these days there’s a new imperative: we must create collaborations aimed at producing economic development and jobs. At Rutgers, we see these sorts of public-private partnerships not only as a tremendous opportunity for our students and faculty, but as critical resource for New Jersey.
Rutgers announced just such and effort today at a small celebration on the university’s Busch Campus in Piscataway. We’re working with IBM to create a new high-performance computing center, Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute (RDI2), focused on the application of “Big Data” analytics in life sciences, finance, and other industries. The goal is to improve the economic competitiveness of New Jersey’s public and private research institutions.
The centerpiece is a IBM Blue Gene®/P supercomputer that we’ve named “Excalibur,” playing off our sports mascot, the Scarlet Knight. In addition to gaining access to the hardware and an impressive array of software and technical support, Rutgers faculty members and graduate students and technical people from New Jersey companies will be able to work with IBM scientists and engineers on joint research projects.