Intel invest US$12m in new research centre

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 13 May 2009 08:39

IT Industry - Market

Intel is investing US$12 million over five years to create a new research centre to explore advanced graphics and visual computing technologies in collaboration with a German university.

The new centre – called the Intel Visual Computing Institute – opens today at the Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany, with a charter to actively solicit other academic and industry partners to join the research activities over time.

Intel says the investment in the centre represents its largest ever European university collaboration, with the number of research professionals employed expected to grow by more than five times over the next 5 years and include collaborators from across Europe.

Justin Rattner, Intel vice president and chief technology officer, says the lab’s innovations will help to make future entertainment, productivity and the Internet experience more intuitive and immersive.
 
“A key mission of the latest member of Intel Labs Europe is to contribute to the company’s tera-scale research program, which explores how multiple computing cores will be used to produce higher-performance computing and more life-like graphics.”

For the unitiated, Intel describes visual computing as the analysis, enhancement and display of visual information to “create life-like, real-time experiences and more natural ways for people to interact with computers and other devices.” Applications include games, medical imaging and interactive 3-D data models used in areas such as scientific research and financial services, and Justin Rattner says Intel’s visual computing vision is to realise computer applications that look real, act real and feel real.

Rattner says Intel has collaborated with the world-class researchers at Saarland University in visual computing for a number of years and, “given the growing importance of visual computing technology, it made perfect sense to expand our relationship and form this new institute. We are confident that it will become an internationally recognised centre and a driver for European leadership in the visual computing field.”
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