Hydro Power Draws Green Supercomputers to Holyoke

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Five Universities are teaming to build the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center using cheap water power from the Connecticut River.

Boston University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts formed the venture to boost academic research in protein structure, fluid flows, the dynamics of the earth’s atmosphere, human social interaction, the evolution of the galaxy and other issues. The universities are each spending $10 million, the state of Massachusetts has committed $25 million and technology companies EMC Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. are contributing $2.5 million apiece.

The relatively cheap electricity is particularly important for the computing center, which is expected to consume up to 15 megawatts, the equivalent of powering as many as 15,000 homes. Read the Full Story.