CUDA Center of Excellence

In 2008, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was named the world’s first CUDA Center of Excellence by the NVIDIA Corporation, a world leader in visual computing technologies. As an NVIDIA Center of Excellence, Illinois is recognized as a primary collaborator with NVIDIA, and has received research funding and equipment to expand that working relationship. Recent NVIDIA support has included 32 QuadroPlex Model 4 systems, each outfitted with 64 graphics processing units (GPUs). These systems have been incorporated into a 16-node CUDA cluster, which is managed by NCSA as a key component of Illinois’s parallel computing facilities.

 

CUDA Center of Excellence—Education

According to Dr. David Kirk, NVIDIA chief scientist, a CUDA Center of Excellence designation also rewards schools that integrate CUDA technology in the classroom, which promotes parallel processing concepts and equips students for the future of computing. Dr. Wen-mei Hwu, professor of electrical & computer engineering at Illinois and the center's principal investigator, collaborated with Dr. Kirk to teach one of the nation's first courses for advanced students in massively parallel processing.