Intel funnels $40 million into global network of research laboratories

Intel funnels $40 million into global network of research laboratories

Like any tech company worth its weight in silicon, Intel puts plenty of cash into research, often partnering with outside labs and schools that are less concerned with turning every project into a multi-billion dollar product. After throwing $ 30 million at Carnegie Mellon last year to open two new labs, Chipzilla is investing $ 40 million more in a global network of university research centers. Over the next five years that money will be rolled out to what the company is calling, Intel Collaborative Research Institutes (ICRI). The ICRI are based on the same premise as Intel's Science and Technolog y Centers, like those opened at Mellon, except with a global reach. Two existing labs, the Intel Visual Computing Institute at Saarland University and the Intel-NTU Connected Context Computing Center at National Taiwan University are being rolled into the program. In addition, three new centers are being opened up, including ICRIs for Sustainable Connected Cities in the United Kingdom, Secure Computing at the Technische Universität Darmstadt and Computational Intelligence at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. For more info on what sort or work they'll be doing at the various labs check out the PR after the break.

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Intel Invests More Than $ 40 Million in Worldwide Network of University Research Centers to Drive Innovation

Total Investment Includes New Intel Collaborative Research Institutes in U.K., Germany and Israel

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Intel will invest more than $ 40 million over the next 5 years in a worldwide network of university research centers called "Intel Collaborative Research Institutes" (ICRI).
The ICRI program will bring together experts from academia and industry to invent the future of technology.
New Institutes include the ICRI for Sustainable Connected Cities in the United Kingdom; ICRI for Secure Computing in Germany; and the ICRI for Computational Intelligence in Israel.
Each Intel Collaborative Research Institute is led by a "hub" school and will span multiple "spoke" universities, building a vibrant global community of researchers.
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Intel Corporation today announced it will invest more than $ 40 million over the next 5 years in a worldwide network of university research communities called the Intel Collaborative Research Institutes (ICRI). The ICRI program is based on the successful U.S.-based Intel Science and Technology Centers (ISTCs), and will bring together exp erts from academia and industry to help explore and invent in the next generation of technologies that could impact the lives of many in the future.

"The new Intel Collaborative Research Institute program underscores our commitment to establishing and funding collaborative university research to fuel global innovation in key areas and help address some of today's most challenging problems"
"The new Intel Collaborative Research Institute program underscores our commitment to establishing and funding collaborative university research to fuel global innovation in key areas and help address some of today's most challenging problems," said Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel. "Forming a multidisciplinary community of Intel, faculty and graduate student researchers from around the world will lead to fundamental breakthroughs in some of the most difficult and vexing areas of computing technology."

The three ICRIs will collaborate with the ir own multi-university communities and other ICRIs, as well as the U.S.-based ISTCs, strengthening Intel's global research network. In addition, two previously established centers are being incorporated in the ICRI program: Intel Visual Computing Institute (Saarland University) and the Intel-NTU Connected Context Computing Center (National Taiwan University), extending Intel's global research network even further.

Each institute will have a specialized focus, but is encouraged to incorporate the unique environments within their region, country and area of research. The three new ICRIs include:

The ICRI for Sustainable Connected Cities, United Kingdom. This joint collaboration among Intel, Imperial College London and University College London aims to address challenging social, economic and environmental problems of city life with computing technology. Using London as a test bed, researchers will explore technologies to make cities more aware and adapti ve by harnessing real-time user and city infrastructure data. For example, through a city urban cloud platform, the city managers could perform real-time city optimizations such as predicting the effects of extreme weather events on the city's water and energy supplies, resulting in delivery of near-real-time information to citizens through citywide displays and mobile applications.
The ICRI for Secure Computing, Germany. At this Institute, Intel and the Technische Universität Darmstadt will explore ways to dramatically advance the trustworthiness of mobile and embedded devices and ecosystems. For example, the joint research will seek ways to develop secure, car-to-device communications for added driver safety; new approaches to secure mobile commerce, and a better understanding of privacy and its various implementations. By grounding the research in the needs of future users, the institute will then research software and hardware to enable robust, available, su rvivable systems for those use cases.
The ICRI for Computational Intelligence, Israel. In a joint collaboration with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the ICRI will explore ways to enable computing systems to augment human capabilities in a wide array of complex tasks. For example, by developing body sensors that continuously monitor the owner's body, researchers could then pre-process this information and take appropriate actions. The system can continuously monitor human functions from the brain, heart, blood, eyes and more, and send this data to a remote server that will combine them with other data such as environmental weather conditions, along with historical data, and could proactively warn people about a potential headache or dizziness during driving.
"Intel has long recognized that the computing industry is sustained by the efforts of many participants," said Chris Ramming, director of Intel Labs University Collaborations Office. "We are hopeful that we will be able to expand the program and include other industry and government sponsors to find new ways to accelerate the creation and adoption of valuable new technologies."

About Intel

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world's computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at newsroom.intel.com and blogs.intel.com.

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