Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1986 [PAGE 83]

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72

BOARD O F TRUSTEES

[September 20

No additional funds will be required to operate the center. The effort will continue to be funded through the reallocation of funds available to the College of Dentistry and through endowment and grant funds generated for the center. The proposal was approved by the senate at the Health Sciences Center. T h e University Senates Conference has indicated no further senate jurisdiction is involved. The vice president for academic affairs concurs in the recommendation. Subject to further action by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, I recommend establishment of the center as described. O n m o t i o n of M r . L o g a n , t h i s r e c o m m e n d a t i o n w a s a p p r o v e d .

Establishment, Center for SupercompuHng Research and Development, Graduate College, Urbana

(26) T h e chancellor at Urbana-Champaign has recommended the establishment of a Center for Supercomputing Research and Development as a special unit of the Graduate College. T h e center will be devoted to basic research and long-range development of advanced supercomputing "architectures" and to strategies for the programming of advanced machines. I t is expected that supercomputers will become a major factor in many areas of research in the years ahead. The competition for development of new architectures and new programming strategies is now beginning. T h e center will be staffed in part by scientists with joint appointments in the Departments of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and possibly other departments. The staff also will include several professional engineers and computer scientists with expertise in microchip design and in construction, logic, and computer programming. The center will be administered by a director, appointed by the chancellor, on the recommendation of the dean of the Graduate College. The key faculty members, currently in the Department of Computer Science, who will form the nucleus of the new center are: Professor David J. Kuck, who is proposed as director of the center; and Professors Ahmed H. Sameh, Duncan H. Lawrie, and Daniel D. Gajski. Additional joint appointments will probably be made as the center is established and begins to expand its activities. Financial support for the center will come in part from funds provided by the University and in part from external grant support. At present, it is anticipated that funds from the National Science Foundation ($1.5 million over a five-year period) and from the U.S. Department of Energy ($10 to $12 million over a fiveyear period) will be forthcoming, beginning about January 1985. In addition, the University has committed $500,000 for support of the center in Fiscal Year 1985 and is committed to support the center to the extent of $1 million per year in FY 1986 and beyond. Space has been allocated by the College of Engineering to support the activities of the center. Finally, it is anticipated that the work of the center will affect the University's prospects for funding from the National Science Foundation in the establishment of a separate Center for Scientific and Engineering Supercomputing. A proposal for such a center, before the National Science Foundation at the moment, will involve a commitment of $43 million from the National Science Foundation over five years and a significant commitment from the State of Illinois over a ten-year period. The presence of these two centers could well establish the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as the preeminent academic institution in supercomputing research and development and in the uses of supercomputing for scientific research purposes.