October 14, 2014

 

On September 18, 2014, members of the OHSU community, local government and Intel Corp. were in attendance at the grand opening for Data Center West. Though it boasts a geodesic dome straight out of popular science fiction, the 18,000 square foot facility will serve not only as a high-density home for OHSU’s existing heterogeneous technology infrastructure, but also as home for a forward-thinking “exascale” computing partnership with Intel.

Joined by Intel Executive Vice President for Corporate Strategy Thomas M. Kilroy, Senior Principal Engineer for Intel Corporation, Gans Srinivasa, OHSU Chief Information Officer Bridget Barnes and OHSU President Joe Robertson, OHSU Technology Services Director and Data Center inventor Perry Gliessman cut the ribbon and welcomed attendees for tours of the new state-of-the-art facility. 

Gans Srinivasa, Senior Principal Engineer for Intel Corporation, spoke about the enthusiasm Intel employees have for supporting the work of OHSU faculty. “It has been a delightful journey in an immersive and collaborative environment between OHSU and Intel…. Drs. Joe Gray, Brian Druker, Paul Spellman, Mary Stenzel-Poore and many other professors and leaders at OHSU and many fellow engineers and leaders at Intel inspired us to create the ’ExaCloud,’” he said. 

With capacity that is a thousand-fold increase over supercomputers that came into operation as recently as 2008, exascale computing provides a much-needed platform for the kind of genomic analysis and personalized medicine that OHSU hopes will one day be common in the clinical experience.

*Pictured left to right: Front row ,Suzi Fei, post-doctoral researcher of molecular and medical genetics; Kevin Ma, Intel; Carly King, senior research assistant center for spatial systems bioscience; Karthik Gururaj, Intel; Vinay Phegade, Intel; Elmar Bucher, research assistant center for spatial systems bioscience. 

Back row: Paul Spellman, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular and medical genetics; Ganapati Srinavasa, Intel; Michael Wrinn, Intel; Jayson Strayer, Intel; Rob Stites, research associate center for spoken language understanding.
 

For more information

• Data Center West website 
• OHSU teams with Intel to decode the root causes of cancer and other complex diseases
• No, a spaceship didn't land in Hillsboro. It's OHSU's new Data Dome, Portland Business Journal