MGHPCC Expands Capacity

June 1, 2016

First of Series of Additions Expected at Holyoke Data Center.
MGHPCC Press Release
Holyoke, Massachusetts, Wednesday, June 1, 2016 – The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) announced today that it is expanding capacity to meet growing demand for computationally intensive scientific research at the state-of-the-art facility.
The expansion is the first of a series of additions anticipated by the data center’s long-term growth plan. During its three years of operation, the MGHPCC has grown to support more than 10,000 direct users of its computing resources, with hundreds of thousands of processor cores and tens of petabytes of storage. Thousands more users worldwide are supported by research databases and other services housed at the MGHPCC.
The expansion announced today will be used and funded by Harvard University, one of the founding members of the MGHPCC, to meet near-term needs for storage and computing capacity. Future expansion will be funded by other founding members -- Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts -- as needs evolve.
“Computing is strategically important to the Harvard University research program,” said Rick McCullough, Vice Provost for Research at Harvard University. “By working collaboratively with other research institutions we have been able to achieve flexibility and economies of scale to meet research faculty needs that would have been much more difficult to accomplish individually.”
The expansion represents a $1.6M investment in the 90,000-square-foot data center and will employ nearly 20 people locally during the course of the project.
"The expansion of MGHPCC is significant not only for the fact that it is a great example of a successful public and private investment but also because it has created opportunities for innovation,” said Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse. “ Research in green energy and disease control, along with many other topics, are currently underway there, and it is so important to have this facility in order to give researchers the opportunity to make life changing discoveries."
“Today’s expansion is an important step forward for the MGHPCC consortium” said MGHPCC Executive Director John Goodhue. “It is a testament to the success of the collaboration that created the facility.”