CHPC History
The history of the Center for High Performance Computing follows the general history of computing technology in America as the Center’s staff incorporated new technologies as quickly as possible in order to make available to University of Utah researchers the state of the art computing.
1990 Agreement with IBM
The Center had its start in 1989 as the Utah Supercomputing Institute (USI), prior to the University entering into a partnership with IBM for the purchase of an IBM 3090 machine. Listed at a whopping $22 million price tag, IBM gave the machine to USI on the condition that it would be used primarily for academic research computing. To put that price in perspective, in 1990, the Utah state legislature provided $28 million for the state’s entire higher education budget. Additionally, IBM required that 25% of the computing time be used to “investigate the application of supercomputer and telecommunications technology problems in science, engineering and industry,” in order to expand the base of researchers who use supercomputing resources in their work. IBM funded the staff that provided courses in supercomputing, user tutorials and workshops. The agreement was a wise marketing ploy that advanced the use of IBM’s products. At the same time, it advanced academic research at the University of Utah.
IBM 3090
more to come