A legislative advisory group is questioning whether a government-funded supercomputer can ever meet its goal of generating revenue and creating significant numbers of high-tech jobs in New Mexico.
A report released late last month by the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee, which advises the state's legislature on fiscal issues, was skeptical about the future of the $36 million project, overseen by the New Mexico Computing Application Center (NMCAC).
The New Mexico Legislature created the center in 2007.
Hopes were high at first for the supercomputer, called Encanto, which includes Silicon Graphics Inc. technology and 14,500 Xeon processors from Intel Corp.
Early on, it was ranked third on the Top500 supercomputer list. It has dropped to 12th on the list, and it may fall further when the new rankings are released next week at the International Supercomputer Conference in Germany.
Now, according the advisory group's report, "NMCAC's ability to continue as a going concern is in question."
When launched, the center was expected to generate $59 million for the state over six years by leasing cycle time on the machine and by winning government grants. The report projects that the system will generate about $2 million this year.
Reaching the financial goal "is going to be a challenge," acknowledged Tom Bowles, the science adviser to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and chairman of NMCAC. However, he believes the center's primary attraction to potential customers is its working relationship with the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories.
"If it was just a computer, we wouldn't be any different from any other system in the country," he said.
This version of this story originally appeared in Computerworld 's print edition.
