About Research Computing

Research Computing brings together a diverse portfolio of research computing and data resources available at the University of Minnesota, including high performance computing, spatial data, data science and artificial intelligence, and more. As a unit of the system-wide Research and Innovation Office, Research Computing is the administrative organization that oversees the Minnesota Supercomputing InstituteU-Spatial, the Data Science and AI Hub, the International Institute of Biosensing, and Sustainable GeoCommunities. Research Computing seeks to coordinate its member units to increase the visibility of their respective services, effectively collaborate and partner with all UMN campuses and national computing providers, and provide a seamless user experience to the University’s research and scholarly communities. 

 

Units within Research Computing

Minnesota Supercomputing Institute

The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) provides advanced research computing infrastructure and expertise to the research and scholarly community at the University of Minnesota and throughout the State of Minnesota. Our goal is to advance and accelerate research and to foster innovation and discoveries through advanced computing technologies, scientific computing and informatics, application development, and services.

U-Spatial

U-Spatial serves and drives a fast-growing need for expertise in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, and spatial computing across the University. Spatiality is a ‘Rosetta Stone’ for transdisciplinary teams. U-Spatial collaborates closely with large research centers and programs, and purposely seeks to serve researchers working in the so-called “long tail” of the scientific enterprise. These are often smaller projects that cannot support full-time spatial research staff.

Data Science and AI Hub

The University of Minnesota is a powerhouse in cutting edge Data Science research with many high-quality data science and artificial intelligence activities already existing throughout the system campuses. The Data Science and AI Hub's primary focus is university-wide communication, coordination, integration, and amplification of those activities. This includes both near-term coordination of existing efforts to maximize efficiency and far-term collaboration to initiate new research and education topics.

International Institute for Biosensing

Step into the realm of biosensing excellence with the International Institute of Biosensing (IIB), where global players converge to shape the future of biosensing. At IIB, collaboration and innovation are not just ideals, but the driving force behind our mission. We seamlessly connect experts from academia, nonprofits, industry, and government agencies, sparking synergies that transcend borders and disciplines. As catalysts for progress, we decipher the language of interdisciplinary teams, pinpointing barriers to advanced biosensing research. Through our coordinated national and international initiatives, we forge pathways to transformative solutions, addressing the world’s most urgent challenges head-on.

Sustainable GeoCommunities

Sustainable GeoCommunities (SGC) is leveraging the power of research to create healthy, equitable, and prosperous conditions for people across the globe. This community-based program has the audacious goal of solving problems that local communities are facing with globally reaching results. SGC uses a bottom-up approach that starts with a local community and works with them to leverage local knowledge and the power of academic research institutions to discover novel solutions that can then be scaled for global impact. SGC is targeting community goals which are critical to local communities from Minnesota, USA to Kerala, India.