A consortium of four community colleges and their associated high performance computing laboratories are studying the need for technician support for these laboratories. High performance computing is the use of a networked group of computer processors that perform complex computational operations in parallel. In this project, a survey is being developed, distributed, and analyzed to determine the demand for technicians and the skills they need. A national advisory board composed of representatives from industry, academia and government are guiding the project. The colleges involved are University of Hawaii/Maui, Wake Technical College, Contra Costa College, and Pellissippi State Technical Community College. The high performance computing partners include Maui High Performance Computing Center, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and the North Carolina Supercomputing Center.
