About our team

In 2005, the University recognized the need for a shared research computing resource to support both domain-specific and interdisciplinary research activities. A faculty team, consisting of 17 researchers from across the university documented the need for a central research computing resource and the opportunities presented by this resource. In addition to recommending the purchase of a large high-performance computing cluster, this team’s report recommended the formation of a university center to provide research computing support, expertise, training, and collaboration activities for the entire university community.
In late 2007, the College of Arts and Sciences, Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Medical Center jointly funded the Center for Research Computing (CRC). In mid-2008, the initial computing hardware was purchased, and the CRC was officially launched.
In 2011, the center was renamed the Center for Integrated Research Computing (CIRC) to reflect its growing integration into several departments and centers across the Medical Center and River Campus.
From its launch in mid-2008 to 2021, CIRC expanded its high-performance computing systems from approximately 420 teraFLOPS of computational performance and 2 petabytes of storage space to 2021’s offering of over 480 nodes with approximately 5.2 petabytes of storage capacity. This foundational infrastructure provides roughly 1,440 teraflops of performance and is capable of delivering 126 million CPU hours per year.
Simultaneously, the center has grown to include eight full-time staff members; the team is comprised of system administrators and computational scientists that are partially or fully funded from research grants.