Supercomputer Proposed for Butte

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A new private, non-profit company has proposed to construct a new supercomputer in the town of Butte, Montana.  Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Center is lobbying Butte Silver Bow local government to fork out $700k to help bring the project to fruition.  The state of Montana has already pushed $1.5million into the project as well as several investments from private entities.

We are bringing innovation in the business plan, we are bringing innovation in the architecture for the system, and we are trying to get Montana to move out of the 19th century and move into the 21st century,” [Rocky Mountain’s CEO Alex Philip] said.

The proposed plan has entities around the state buying time on the machine(s) for various simulations and research projects.  From the sound of it, “entities” are referring to academic and private institutions.  The overall goal being to spur business and academic development around Butte.

The return on that investment regarding the job growth here in Butte, regarding attracting other businesses into Butte, regarding supporting the research and academia objectives of the university system here we think will return a positive return on investment,” [Philip] said.

This is certainly an interesting project for Butte.  I would be curious to see Philip’s business plan and scale of the center.  For more info on this story, read the full series of articles here.

Comments

  1. The wife and girls will be in Butte for Thanksgiving. I’ll make them go get the nitty gritty on this.

    Rich