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2015 Pennsylvania State Budget Includes $500,000 for the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Monday, July 14, 2014
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania budget for fiscal year 2015 includes $500,000 for the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC).
“We are, of course, pleased and honored that the state has once again found PSC to be worthy of funding in this fiscally challenging year,” says Ralph Roskies, scientific director for PSC. “We’re grateful to the members of the General Assembly, the Allegheny County delegation and especially the critical bipartisan support of Senators Randy Vulakovich and Jay Costa and Representatives Mark Mustio and Joe Markosek.”
The state’s return on its past investments in PSC has been outstanding. Since PSC’s inception, the center has brought over $500 million in outside funds into Pennsylvania, representing a 14:1 return on state funding for PSC.
“An economic study has shown that PSC is responsible for generating 1,600 jobs and over $200 million in annual economic activity,” says Cheryl Begandy, PSC’s director of education, outreach, and training. “In addition, our place on the leading edge of computing technologies at the largest scale enables us to respond quickly to technological developments, giving the state, its researchers and its small and mid-sized companies a leg up in capitalizing on these advances.”
The state line item will also prove very valuable to PSC’s ongoing competition for federal research funding. Federal agencies realize that states benefit from federal research funding, and look for concrete evidence of their support for a research center.
PSC’s state funding goes toward science, technology, engineering and math education projects, outreach to serve small- and medium-sized Pennsylvania businesses’ computational needs, other workforce development projects and other operational activities.
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