MARC³ March 4 Event at Oakton Community College Sponsored by US Rep. Jan Schakowsky

This Midwest Academic and Resilience Cloud Computing Consortium (www.marc3.org) event will announce the creation of a High Performance Computing Innovation Cluster in northeast Illinois along the lines of the innovation clusters described in the America COMPETES Act signed by the President last week.  The Act states “Congress finds that the utilization of high-end computing simulation and modeling by large-scale government contractors and Federal research entities has resulted in substantial improvements in the development of advanced manufacturing technologies; and such simulation and modeling would also benefit small- and medium-sized manufacturers in the United States if such manufacturers were to deploy such simulation and modeling throughout their manufacturing chains.”  Therefore “It is the policy of the United States to take all effective measures practicable to ensure that Federal programs and policies encourage and contribute to the use of high-end computing simulation and modeling in the United States manufacturing sector.”

 The cluster will include several Centers of Excellence beginning with a manufacturing CoE at Oakton Community College (http://www.oakton.edu/).  U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky is sponsoring the event which is hosted by Oakton and the Workforce Board of northern Cook County (http://www.workforceboard.org/).  Industry representatives will also be on hand to discuss the growing demand for high performance computing in small and medium size organizations and how that capability can be delivered in a cost effective manner using cloud computing and modular data centers.  This is an opportunity for data center professionals to learn more about how in the near future Generation 4 data centers will be used in multi-tenant environments.  There will also be a discussion led by Dr. Joseph Orgel from the Illinois Institute of Technology on why such innovation clusters are needed locally to give researchers necessary access to high performance computing. There is no charge for this event.