Career · Institutes

National Center for Supercomputing Applications

Larry Smarr founded NCSA at the University of Illinois and served as its director, helping bring advanced computing, visualization, and the early web to a national research community.

Browse the NCSA founding proposal and associated publications, presentations, and media preserved in this archive.

December 2, 1983

A Center for Scientific and Engineering Supercomputing

Proposal · NCSA

The founding proposal for a dedicated scientific and engineering supercomputing center at the University of Illinois.

View proposal Download PDF

Jul 23, 2024
35 HPC Legends 2024 – Founding Director of NCSA – HPC Wire
Honors; Print | 2024-07-23
The proposal was the first unsolicited submission to be approved by the NSF and led to the founding of four supercomputing centers: Cornell, Illinois, Princeton, and San Diego, with a fifth, Pittsburgh, established later.
May 21, 2024
Homecoming – NCSA
Print; Profiles | 2024-05-21
Larry Smarr, NCSA’s founder, recently came home to NCSA to give a talk on his journey from founding the Center to his work with the National Research Platform (NRP). Smarr was on campus to accept an honorary Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC) during this year’s commencement.
May 3, 2024
NCSA Welcomes Back Larry Smarr to Share Insights on Nationwide Cyberinfrastructure Development – HPC Wire
Print | 2024-05-03
May 3, 2024 — High-Performance Computing (HPC) luminary and NCSA founding director Larry Smarr will be returning to the Center to give a talk titled “From NCSA to the National Research Platform” on May 9 at 12 p.m. in the NCSA auditorium on the first floor.
Feb 2, 2022
NCSA Reflects on 35 Years as a Supercomputing Powerhouse
Print | 2022-02-02
But 1986 did have some bright spots. IBM introduced the world’s first laptop computer. Author and humanitarian Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the National Science Foundation established the National Center for Supercomputing Applications as part of its Supercomputer Centers Program.
Sep 20, 2016
Larry Smarr Helps NCSA Celebrate 30th Anniversary – HPC Wire
Print | 2016-09-20
On Friday, Larry Smarr, whose unsolicited 1983 proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) begat NCSA in 1985 and helped spur NSF to create not one but five national centers for supercomputing, gave a celebratory talk at NCSA.
Mar 8, 2016
A Public Infrastructure For Data Access – Quantified Self
Print | 2016-03-08
Larry Smarr’s major contributions to scientific progress are well known. A physicist and the founding director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), he helped bring the power of computing to scientific research at a time when computers will still highly specialized instruments.
Feb 18, 2014
Founding NCSA Director Receives Golden Goose Award – HPC Wire
Print | 2014-02-18
Feb. 18 — Larry Smarr, a physicist whose work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on calculating black hole collisions led him to champion a federal commitment to dramatically enhance U.S. computing power.
Jun 27, 2006
CalViz Studio and New Optical Link Enable Smarr to Go ?Telepresent? to NCSA Industrial Meeting – QI News
Print | 2006-06-27
This event was held during the 2006 NCSA Private Sector Program Annual Meeting. Smarr s participation demonstrated an early use of the optical link now in place between Calit2 and NCSA to enable the latter to be persistently coupled into the 10-Gbps optical fabric that Calit2, the National LambdaRail, and CENIC are building out.
Apr 2, 1999
NCSA Unveils ROADRUNNER Linux-based Workstation Supercluster – HPC Wire
Print | 1999-04-02
The National Computational Science Alliance will introduce its first 128 processor workstation supercluster running the Linux operating system as the latest addition to the National Technology Grid, its arsenal of powerful computational resources.
Sep 11, 1998
Social Scientists Pass Up Free Supercomputer Time – HPC Wire
Print | 1998-09-11
September 11, 1998 – Social-science projects accounted for less than 1 per cent of the research last year at supercomputers financed by the National Science Foundation, says Larry Smarr, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
May 1, 1998
JP Morgan Analyzes Risk Management on NCSA Origin2000 – HPC Wire
Print | 1998-05-01
Champaign, IL — J.P. Morgan recently extended its risk management capabilities through the application of new mathematical models and advanced technology, JP Morgan and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) announced.
Oct 3, 1997
Alliance led by NCSA becomes a reality – HPC Wire
Print | 1997-10-03
An alliance of researchers, industry, and educational leaders, linking more than 50 research partners across the country and led by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) becomes a reality October 1.
Jan 10, 1997
HPC in 1996 and 1997: An interview with Larry Smarr – HPC Wire
Print; Profiles | 1997-01-10
January 10, 1997 – Urbana-Champaign, Ill. — To further understanding of significant trends in high-performance computing at the juncture of a new year, HPCwire interviewed Larry Smarr, director of NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) about his view of the most important developments that have taken place in the industry during 1996 and those which might be anticipated in the 12 months ahead.
Mar 3, 1992
The New Explorers – WTTW Chicago
Video | 1992-03-03
Larry Smarr highlights many areas of research being done at NCSA (National Center for Supercomputer Applications) for television program The New Explorers
Watch on YouTube ↗
Aug 1, 1989
video
NCSA’s Science by Satellite – SIGGRAPH 1989
Video; Video Presentations | 1989-08-01
NCSA used its presence at SIGGRAPH 1989 to paint a vision of distance bing eliminated by network and computing technology.
Watch on YouTube ↗
Feb 21, 2014
Through the Looking Glass: Larry Smarr on Emerging Supercomputing Technologies – HPC Wire
Podcasts | 2014-02-21
John Russell of HPCwire interviews Larry Smarr, a physicist whose work on calculating black-hole collisions led him to champion a federal commitment to boost U.S. computing power, which in turn led to the development of NCSA Mosaic, the precursor to Web browsers.