A new High Performance Center for computation, cloud and other functions, which brings together the University of Pisa, the Scuola Normale Superiore and two world I.T. giants Dell and Intel, has been set up in Pisa. The center (whose official name is: "High Performance Computing & Cloud Competence Center") was officially presented at the "Gerace" Room of the I.T. Department of the University of Pisa on 29 May 2013.
This center will have the most up to date equipment created by Dell and Intel for an infrastructure capable of elaboration and memorization of large quantities of data. This includes the recent Intel "Xeon Phi" Processor. This equipment will be used both for reasons of demonstration and research. The University I.T. Center is joining forces with the Scuola Normale's Support Center for its 'DREAMS' research project. Both will share their experience gained from the new forms of technology and their work for the construction of complex software and hardware systems.
HPC and cloud are essential elements for the elaboration of scientific data and the industrial world for they allow for elaboration of enormous quantities of data necessary for the advancement of knowledge. This Center is already involved in the support of "Imago 7's" M.R.I. recently inaugurated at Calambrone. It is involved in the archiving and elaboration of its medical data.
The Center's inauguration marks an important juncture in the collaboration being developed among the University institutes of Pisa and the two multi-national I.T. companies. Furthermore it represents an explicit recognition of the scientific and technical competences, accumulated within the structures, which are the basis of such collaboration.
The I.T. Center is an interdepartmental center of the University of Pisa consisting of the departments of Physics, and I.T. and soon, the department of I.T. Engineering. This Center aims to carry out in-depth studies on the technology of ICT, which will be able to be used for University research and development. Furthermore the I.T. Center provides a space where important international bodies can collaborate with the great Pisan tradition of data elaboration in such a way that opportunities of specialized study (for students) and development (for local industries) can be offered.
The Support Center for DREAMS research (Distributed Research Environment for Advanced Modeling and Simulation) is a center of the Scuola Normale Superiore. It is dedicated to the application of ICT technology to science, both from a computational aspect and the aspect of visualization of data via systems with highly interactive virtual reality.