The Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing (CAC), housed at Frank H. T. Rhodes Hall on the campus of

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

, is one of five original centers in the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

's Supercomputer Centers Program. It was formerly called the Cornell Theory Center.

Establishment

The Cornell Theory Center (CTC) was established in 1985 under the direction of Cornell Physics Professor and Nobel Laureate Kenneth G. Wilson. In 1984, the

began work on establishing five new

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

centers, including the CTC, to provide high-speed computing resources for research within the United States. In 1985, a team from the

National Center for Supercomputing Applications The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a unit of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and provides high-performance computing resources to researchers in the United States. NCSA is currently led by Professor Bill ...

began the development of

NSFNet The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. The ...

, a

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...

-based computer network that could connect to the

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...

at Cornell University and the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

. This high-speed network, unrestricted to academic users, became a backbone to which regional networks would be connected. Initially a 56-

kbit/s In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...

network, traffic on the network grew exponentially; the links were upgraded to 1.5-

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

T1s in 1988 and to 45 Mbit/s in 1991. The NSFNet was a major milestone in the development of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

and its rapid growth coincided with the development of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

. In the early 1990s, in addition to support from the

, the CTC received funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Corporation, SGI, and members of the center's Corporate Research Institute. The center's focus was on developing scalable

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

resources for its user community and applying their expertise in parallel algorithm development and optimization to a wide range of scientific and engineering problems.

History

In 1995, the building that houses what was then known as the Cornell Theory Center was named Frank H. T. Rhodes Hall which currently houses the Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing. The Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing, and its predecessor the Cornell Theory Center, deployed the first IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer and first

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

, and established a financial solutions center for supercomputing. Today, CAC is a partner on the National Science Foundatio
XSEDE
project, a collection of integrated digital resources and services enabling open science research. CAC is also developing training for TACC'
Frontera
supercomputer, serving as the technical lead for the Scalable Cyberinfrastructure Institute for Multi-Messenger Astrophysics
SCiMMA
project, developing software for the Institute for Research and Innovation in Software for High Energy Physics
IRIS-HEP
, and designing cyberinfrastructure for th
NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center
A 175 times faster computation of a CDC hepatitis C model on a CAC MATLAB cloud is noted in the

International Data Corporation International Data Group (IDG, Inc.) is an American market intelligence and demand generation company focused on the technology industry. IDG, Inc.'s mission is centered around supporting the technology industry through research, data, market ...

's What the Exascale Era Can Provide report. CAC was an early implementer of cloud computing with the deployment of Red Cloud. CAC also designed and deployed a federated cloud calle
Aristotle
an
builds cloud images and containerizes applications
for efficiency and portability. Under th
Office of the Vice Provost for Research
CAC provides Cornell faculty, staff, and students, the national research community, and industry with a range of high performance computing and consulting services. Organizations that have participated in CAC's Partner Program include Boeing, Corning, Dell, Ford, HypoVereinsbank, Intel, Microsoft, Pfizer, and start-ups whose technologies have been acquired. The Center is under the direction o
David Lifka
an
Richard Knepper

Building

Rhodes Hall is an eight-story building occupying a narrow, triangular site between Hoy Road and Cascadilla Gorge. In 1989, blueprints and material samples were used to simulate new areas of the building before it was complete. Images of the building's stair tower were computed with a ray tracer using soft shadowing techniques. Frank H

References

External links

Official website of the Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Center for Advanced Computing Cornell University Cornell University buildings Supercomputer sites 1985 establishments in New York (state)