Today computers power everything from cars and traffic lights to coffee makers. While nearly every business person keeps a smart phone or laptop handy, the demand for computing power is still tremendous. This week, Massachusetts’ officials broke ground on a “$168 million high-performance computing center” in Holyoke.“This will be the latest and most cutting edge facility of this kind in the country,” said Gregory Bialecki, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Development. (Image courtesy: http://bit.ly/cgLFza)
According to the interim executive director of the center, John T. Goodhue, once the facility is completed sometime in 2012, it will be capable of processing trillions of bytes of data each day. As anyone who has ever overworked their laptop knows, all that processing can cause a computer to overheat very quickly. Thankfully, Holyoke’s canal systems provide easy access to river water, which will be used to cool the center’s mainframes.
“The center is going to be a unique resource,” Governor Deval Patrick said. “It’s already become a magnet. You know the number of universities and companies that are partnering with us.”
Aside from $25 million raised from taxes, the center is funded by its partners: the University of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Northeastern University in Boston, Cisco Systems Inc., and EMC Corp.
“It’s kind of an incubator for the next generation of technology, including energy efficient information technology,” said Patrick Cooley, EMC Corp’s spokesman.
Presently, unemployment in Holyoke is at 12%.
While the center itself will require just twenty full-time employees, the town is hopeful that its opening will draw new businesses to the area.“You need someone to be the first ones up to bat, then everyone realizes what a good idea it is and what a great location it would be,” Holyoke’s Mayor Elaine Pluta said. (Image courtesy: http://bit.ly/cvmMnv)
In addition to the computing center, Holyoke will market the city’s easy access to promising candidates from the nearby Holyoke Community College and Springfield Technical Community College, proximity to relatively cheap hydroelectric power, and great broadband connectivity.
“It’s not that jobs are going to naturally flow to the center,” explained Robert C. Holub, chancellor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “It’s something that is going to require a lot of work.”
Of course, as UMass President Jack Wilson pointed out, people can also access the center remotely, and research is often labor-intensive. “So that generates jobs all over the commonwealth,” Wilson said.
It is uncertain whether this computing center will help Holyoke take charge of its unemployment by bringing new companies to the area, but with the number of big-name partners promoting the project, the odds seem to be in the city’s favor. Deciding to market Holyoke’s other perks, such as cheap electricity and great broadband connectivity, along with the computing center, is a smart idea. Many locations have a single selling point, with any luck, Holyoke’s collection of selling-points will prove irresistible.
[Sources: http://bit.ly/cz6P6i, http://bit.ly/9ONN2S, http://bit.ly/9lFtMm]
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