News Release

U of G wins a HP/Intel systems grant

The University of Guelph is one of four Canadian universities and one of 40 universities worldwide selected to receive a grant from Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HWP) and Intel Corporation.

Guelph will receive an HP/Intel Itanium Processor Family (IPF) workstation or server products as part of the $2.5-million HP/Intel Itanium-Based System Grants Program, which will allow it to enhance its existing computing systems.

“The University of Guelph is honoured to be selected as a recipient in the HP/Intel Itanium-Based System Grants Program,” said Alan Wildeman, vice-president (research). “This program demonstrates HP and Intel’s ongoing commitment to support education and research, and to strengthen universities’ capabilities in high-performance computing. Computing capacity is increasingly a cornerstone of research.”

“The new workstations include 64-bit architecture that will allow scientists to run more complex computations,”said Deborah Stacey, Guelph’s assistant vice-president (infrastructure research programs). Stacey, an associate professor of computing and information science, applied for the grant and will oversee the amalgamation of the new and current computer equipment. The Itanium workstations will be integrated into the SHARC-NET project, a high-performance computing consortium made up of the universities of Guelph, McMaster, Western, Wilfrid Laurier and Windsor, as well as Fanshawe and Sheridan colleges. It also will compliment the University’s V2500 super computer. “This will allow current SHARC-NET researchers to experiment with the IA64 processor, which may provide the future basis for SHARC-NET hardware,” Stacey said. “These workstations will also be used to further biodiversity research on campus, including work on data collection, analysis, data mining and the display of biodiversity information.”

David Tannenhouse, vice-president and director of research at Intel said that universities play a pivotal role in extending the value of new technology for the broad user community. “This university research will take advantage of the Itanium processor’s unique capabilities and catalyse new and exciting applications in business, science and engineering.” Patrick Scaglia, Director of the Center for Internet and Computing Platform Technologies, HP Labs, added: “HP and Intel are excited to put Itanium-based systems into the hands of these world-class university scientists. We are excited by the enthusiasm of the worldwide scientific community in exploiting the potential of the Itanium architecture. The research proposed will undoubtedly lead to major advances in many fields of science, while showing the true potential of this new architecture.”

Alastair Summerlee, Guelph’s provost and vice-president (academic), said the HP/Intel grant builds on Guelph’s long-standing and excellent relationship with the computer company, which began in 1980 when the University acquired a centralized HP computer system. HP Canada also provided the vast majority of the $4.7 million in matching funding for Guelph’s new addition to its engineering building, has contributed more than $11 million to the University’s campaign, and made a significant donation to the University’s S@GE program, a children’s camp that promotes science education.

“We have continued a relationship with HP because we have common goals emphasizing the importance of technology in our comprehensive university,” Summerlee said. “We look forward to continuing this partnership and welcome the opportunity to form a similar relationship with Intel.”

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Contact:
Alastair Summerlee, provost and vice-president (academic)
(519) 824-4120, Ext. 3845

For media questions, contact
Lori Bona Hunt, media relations officer,
(519) 824-4120, Ext. 3338.

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