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Zacharia, who helped build ORNL into arguably the world's top center for scientific computing over the past decade, spent about 40 minutes with the VW officials. He talked about computing and transportation research and the possibility of collaborations between the automaker and the national lab.
"I don't know if I helped the cause or hurt the cause," he said modestly.
About 20 percent of the Volkswagen employees in Tennessee will be white-collar employees, including design engineers, technical specialists and other high-end positions, and Zacharia said one of the company's concerns was whether they would feel comfortable in the Volunteer State.
"They asked me, 'Do you think people who design cars and things would come to Tennessee?' I said, 'Look, that is the same question that was asked of us 20 years ago. Why would you go to Tennessee?' "
Zacharia proceeded to list the world-class research facilities available in Oak Ridge, such as the Spallation Neutron Source, the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences and the National Center for Computational Sciences.
"Who wouldn't want to come here if you care about science? This is the place to be. This is Disney World!"
Zacharia said he couldn't elaborate on any potential collaborations between VW and ORNL. "It's a little early in the process," he said.
One of the requirements of the University of Tennessee getting a $65 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a new supercomputer is to support economic development. The Cray supercomputer, which is called Kraken, will come online next year and will be housed in the Oak Ridge lab's computer center. It will be capable of more than 1,000 trillion calculations per second and enable researchers to attempt problem solving that heretofore was unthinkable.
Zacharia said the lab has discretionary resources, including about 20 percent of the operating time on Kraken and ORNL's Jaguar supercomputer, available to work with industry on important projects.
"Think about the possibilities for economic development," he said. "You can drive science, you can drive collaborations and, hopefully, breakthroughs in science," he said.
Even though electric power costs have gone up about 20 percent, Zacharia said there are still great advantages to having a "partnership" with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Having a reliable power source is essential when operating high-performance computers, he said.
"The price of gas is one thing -- not having gas is another," Zacharia said. "We have clean, reliable, resilient power. That's huge in this business. You don't want a $100 million or $200 million machine going up and down, up and down.
"Today, in East Tennessee, because of TVA, because of the University of Tennessee, because of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, I believe we are a tour de force when it comes to computing and computational science."
To see more of The Knoxville News Sentinel or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.knoxnews.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Knoxville News Sentinel, Tenn. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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