Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) is all set to create the next generation of computer scientists and architects, thanks in part to the incoming multi-million-dollar research equipment gifted by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
The San Jose, California-based information technology company, which has operations in Plano, announced Tuesday that it has donated five highly-advanced research equipment valued at $10.5 million to the TEES.
TEES, the engineering research agency within The Texas A&M University System, in turn, created the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise Center for Computer Architecture Research to house the equipment and conduct research in the formidable world of big data and computer architectures.
No other facility in Texas has all five of the high-end instruments that Hewlett Packard donated.
“Looking ahead, the ability to make sense of the massive amounts of data generated in academic, public and private sector settings will change not only how we do business, but also how we live,” Hewlett Packard CTO Mark Potter said in a press release. “Our success at evaluating the world around us and making breakthroughs we never thought possible hinges on our ability to apply technology.”
The new research center at TEES will be led by Richard Stanley Williams, a nanotechnology pioneer and former fellow at Hewlett Packard.
The center spans 25,000 square feet of space in the Giesecke Engineering Research Building at TEES.
Hewlett Packard also funded a $1 million endowed chair position, which Texas A&M will match with a $500,000 contribution, according to the release.
“Texas A&M University has great traditions coupled with visionary leadership,” Williams said. “There are already world-class faculty in place who are contributing to the advancement of neuromorphic materials and new computing paradigms.”
Among the equipment donated is a Clustex, used to deposit material layers on a wafer, a Titan Cubed Themis TEM Microscope, Helios SEM/FIB dual beam system, an ASM Atomic Layer Deposition tool, and a NanoLab 460F1 electron microscope.
“Researchers can now develop next-generation computer chips for more powerful but energy-efficient computing, integrated photonic devices and microsensors for biosensing/medical applications or better autonomous vehicles, or flexible electronic devices and micro/nanofluidic systems for continuous health monitoring or point of care diagnosis in remote settings,” said Arum Han, professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering.