Contact:	Bob Nelson						For immediate release
		(212) 854-6580					October 20, 1997
		rjn2@columbia.edu


Intel Donates $2.5 Million in Computers To Columbia for Advanced Research

Columbia University will receive a grant of computer equipment worth $2.5 million from Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer. The high-end multimedia workstations, servers and networking hardware and software will be used for research and curriculum development. Intel is to deliver the machines under its Technology for Education 2000 program over a three-year period. The workstations run at speeds of up to 300 megahertz and use the Windows operating system. They are to be put to work in fields - such as biomolecular simulation and computational finance - in which UNIX-based and other computers have heretofore predominated. Intel and Columbia will monitor the computers' use in research applications. "The long-term success of our industry and other industries depends on the quality of U.S. research universities, their computing infrastructure and the skills of their students," said Tim Saponas, Intel's corporate contributions manager. "We are pleased to be able to support some of the best universities in the country with state-of-the-art tools to carry out computationally intensive research projects." The Santa Clara, Calif., company has announced donations worth a total of $90.3 million this year to 25 universities to support university research and curriculum development in a broad spectrum of computationally demanding areas. Intel also manufactures personal computer, networking and communications products. "This grant of high-end Intel machines, peripheral equipment and software will allow Columbia University to expand a number of existing activities and begin significant new research, educational and curricular efforts," said Raphael Kasper, associate vice provost, who has coordinated Columbia's grant application. About half of the University's new equipment will be used to support cross- school collaboration to develop next-generation multimedia technology for digital storytelling. Columbia's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism will jointly work with the Columbia New Media Technology Center (CNMTC) to develop new software that facilitates multimedia content generation, multimedia searches, mobile distribution and scalable Internet multimedia services. "The combination of high performance and pervasiveness of the PC architecture makes this Intel equipment an ideal platform to implement this new media technology, which will eventually be available to everyone," said Dimitris Anastassiou, director of the CNMTC and professor of electrical engineering. Columbia's broadcast journalism department will use the Intel computers to upgrade to all-digital operations. "Intel's generous grant allows us to complete the infrastructure upgrade to the journalism school," said Andrew Lih, director of technology at the school's Center for New Media. "The Center will continue cross-collaborative research with the engineering school by using Intel equipment to investigate multimedia searching and storytelling applications." Some computers will be allocated to the Institute for Learning Technologies at Teachers College to advance programs that bring digital learning to New York public schools, and some will be installed at the engineering school's Botwinick Gateway Laboratory. Other research programs receiving computers include the Center for Applied Probability, the Graduate School of Business, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Biosphere 2 Center. This document is available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/. Working press may receive science and technology press releases via e-mail by sending a message to rjn2@columbia.edu. 10.20.97 19,196
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