CENTER FOR COMPUTATION & TECHNOLOGY

Research, education and industry in the state will have giant competitive advantages thanks to Louisiana's Queen Bee supercomputer and the associated Louisiana Optical Network Initiative. That good news was highlighted last week in Dresden, Germany, at the International Supercomputing Conference, which placed the state in that rarefied atmosphere of "the world's best." It's encouraging to find Louisiana's Queen Bee is ranked fourth among all supercomputers owned by higher education institutions in the United States and also as the 23rd most powerful supercomputer in the world. It portends great things as the state moves at warp speed toward a leadership position in cyberspace. The Queen Bee, which boasts a huge 50-teraflops capability, is located in the state's Information Systems Building in downtown Baton Rouge and connects to supercomputers at the universities and health sciences centers in Shreveport, Ruston, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and New Orleans. Soon LONI also will allow some connections with a select number of Mississippi institutions — thereby expanding the grid and regional impact as well. Louisiana Tech will immediately benefit in areas such as nanotechnology and engineering research and projects. Other Louisiana campuses without supercomputer connections also will have access as well. One of LONI's greatest benefits is the collaboration it makes possible among our state's higher education institutions, with research being accomplished at a much faster and more accurate rate. For instance, consider the implications for hurricane tracking and storm-surge modeling. The high-performance resources will assist existing researchers, educators and business start-ups, and attract new, cutting-edge ones as well. It's a key selling point for expanding the mission of the Air Force Cyber Command located at Barksdale Air Force Base. Five years ago Louisiana wasn't even on the radar in high-performance computing. Now we are being recognized as having one of the most robust networks in the country and among the 25 most powerful supercomputers in the world. With this investment in information technology, Louisiana gets a much-needed boost for its colleges and universities and those they serve.