Hampton Economic Development Authority Provides Grant to Purchase Supercomputer

Dec. 17, 2013 – Hampton’s Economic Development Authority has approved a $200,000 grant to the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) to buy a high-speed computer cluster with almost 20 Tera-FLOPS of computing power.  This computer cluster will be located in the new Hampton Research and Science Park and will provide an important economic development resource for area companies, researchers, and students.  Some computer simulations that would take a month to execute on a high-end workstation, for example, could be performed in a matter of hours on the new computer. 

“This new computer cluster will allow NIA and new companies in our Peninsula Technology Incubator to expand their computation research capabilities and bring new jobs to the city,” said Dr. Douglas Stanley, President and Executive Director of NIA.  “This grant will provide a unique computing resource for the City of Hampton and be one of the fastest computer systems in the entire Hampton Roads region.  We are very grateful for the generous support of the City of Hampton EDA,” added Dr. Stanley.

“The EDA’s commitment to fund the acquisition of the computer cluster provides a value added resource to help the NIA and other businesses in the Research and Science Park grow beyond their current capabilities.  Hampton now has another asset that can be used to attract new and grow existing technology companies to the city”, said Leonard Sledge, City of Hampton Director of Economic Development.

Although the EDA is providing the $200,000 grant to buy the new computer cluster, all operating and maintenance costs will be carried by the NIA. Access to the computer will be free for Hampton City Schools, the Governor’s School for Science and Technology at New Horizons Regional Education Center, and other educational entities in the city. 

The National Institute of Aerospace is a non-profit research and graduate education facility located in the Hampton Roads Center business park. It conducts leading edge aerospace and atmospheric research and is partners with NASA Langley Research Center, the aerospace community and others. 

For more information on the National Institute of Aerospace, go to www.nianet.org, or contact Harla Sherwood at (757) 636-6300. For more information on Hampton’s Economic Development Authority, go to www.hampton.gov/economicdevelopment, or Dan Girouard at (757) 728-5169.