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- The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), one of the five
original centers in the National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers
Program, opened its doors in January 1986. Over the past 20 years, NCSA has
contributed significantly to the birth and growth of the worldwide
cyberinfrastructure for science and engineering, operating some of the world's
most powerful supercomputers and developing the software infrastructure needed
to efficiently use these systems (for example, NCSA Telnet and, in 1993, NCSA
Mosaic", the first readily available graphical Web browser). Today the center
is recognized as an international leader in deploying robust high-performance
computing resources and in working with research communities to develop new
computing and software technologies.
The center focuses on three key themes. Cyberenvironments will re-engineer the
research process. They will give research communities the means to fully
exploit the extraordinary resources available on the Internet (computing
systems, data sources and stores, and tools). NCSA's cyber-resources ensure
that computing, data, and networking resources are available to solve the most
demanding science and engineering problems and that the solutions are obtained
in a timely manner. Finally, innovative systems research is exploring the path
to petascale computing testing and evaluating the performance of emerging
computing systems for key scientific and engineering applications.
NCSA works with universities and colleges, government agencies, private-sector
companies, communities, and schools to discover how cyberinfrastructure can
benefit them. The National Science Foundation, the state of Illinois, the
University of Illinois, industrial partners, and other federal agencies support
NCSA.
Website: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/AboutUs/mission.html
Info: NCSA
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