Office of the Chancellor

External Affairs

Return on Investment

Technology

• $8 million dollars went to building the Center for Applied Technology and Learning, now called the Center for Computation & Technology (CCT)
• The hallmark of the project was building the second fastest computer at any academic institution in America.
• The remaining funds went towards beneficiary programs like a Training Lab for Research, an information technology residence hall, and an IT Apprenticeship program.
• CCT will accept future proposals on how to delegate the money that comes from our state.

In the 2001 state budget, Gov. Murphy J. “Mike” Foster included $22.5 million for an Information Technology Initiative designed to benefit four Louisiana universities, of which LSU received $8 million. LSU used its appropriation to establish CCT, which distributed the money to various departments and projects that benefit the campus and economic development of the state.

The hallmark of the project was LSU’s new supercomputer named SuperMike. SuperMike is a parallel processor comprised of 1,024 Pentium 4 processors. It is believed to be the second fastest computer at any academic institution in America, performing 2.1 trillion calculations per second.

CCT needed greater computing capacity to fully utilize its the technology and the computational knowledge of the new faculty. The National LambdaRail was the way to jump onto a national network that had the capacity. The LambdaRail skirted the Southeast United States, but wanted to come to Louisiana. The state began a $40 million Louisiana Optical Network Initative to build an in-state network that LambdaRail could tap into. It worked.

By investing in LSU, the state was able to access the latest computing capacity in the world.