The Holyoke High Performance Computing Center project is being driven by the need of the Commowealth's private and public academic institutions for high speed computer capacity dedicated to research. The center will consume large quantities of electrical power, so the search for a site led to Holyoke, where Holyoke Gas & Electric offrs much lower rates than their competitors because they have hydo-electric power. Much of their power happens to be green. HG&E coincidenially was one of the first utilities in the state to develop a fiber optic distribution system on a region-wide basis.
The key players are: the Commonwealth led by Governor Patrick and EOEA secretary Grey Bialecki; the academic consortium led by MIT. UMass, BU and Northeastern are also involved; the City of Holyoke, mayor Elaine Pluta; Holyoke Gas & Electric department manager Jim Lavellie; and Kathy Anderson, the city economic development director.
There are now dozens of people working on the real estate details including surveying, environmental assessment, civil and structural engineering, wetlands, river act, legal matters, and seed money provided by the Commonwealth. The design of the project has ben RFP'd but the archiect/engineer has not been selected.
In addition to all of this Cisco and other private companies have expressed an interest in the project, from different angles.
Westmass is now overseeing the due diligence component dealing with environmental review and permitting. For even a moderate sized economic development project involving private and public investment there will be dozens of organizations and as many as 100 key people involved in bringing the project to groundbreaking. The project can only come off successfully if everyone dedicates their professional talent to the mission.
According to Massachusetts Governor Patrick, the state will pledge up to $25 million in support of the new High Performance Computing Center development project. He also named the Holyoke Innovation District, as it is called, as the 20th Growth District in the state. The addition of state funding brings the grand total of $65 million from the various participants. "These investments are critical to ensuring that the High Performance Computing Center will move forward to support job growth and advances in innovation, technology and research," said Governor Patrick. "This groundbreaking project will serve as the anchor of a competitive and vibrant growth disrict in the Pioneer Valley"