SUN MICROSYSTEMS TO PARTNER NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY IN S$10 MILLION TWINNING PROGRAMME WITH PREMIER INDIAN UNIVERSITY
NTU Will Leverage High Performance And Grid Computing, E-Learning Technologies To Drive Collaboration With Indian Partner
Singapore - March 19th, 2003 - Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) will work with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to select a premier Indian university for a twinning partnership, focussing on using High Performance and Grid Computing, and E-learning technologies to drive scientific research and engineering collaboration.
As a further dimension to the longstanding relationship between Sun and NTU, the rationale for the twinning project is to leverage existing areas of collaboration and research with an institute of higher learning in India. Powered by a S$10 million collaboration plan, the goal will be the innovative development of applications and technologies, in areas such as Digital Signal Processing, Animation, Rendering, Open Source, etc.
Associate Professor Seah Hock Soon, Dean, School of Computer Engineering, NTU, explained, "As an industry partner, Sun has long helped us focus our research efforts on the cutting edge. This dynamic and fruitful relationship has led to the setting up of research bodies such as the Application Service Provider (ASP) Centre and the Asia Pacific Science & Technology Centre (APSTC).
"What excited us about the idea of a twinning partnership with an Indian University is the opportunity to drive innovation further by taking advantage of the human capital and existing research resources in both universities as well as facilitating technologies via Sun."
As the first three-way relationship of its kind in the world, NTU and SUN will jointly select the institute in India, developing the necessary IT infrastructure and knowledge transfer necessary to support the partnership. In this partnership, Sun will provide technology transfers to NTU and the participating India Institute to facilitate the collaborative research and engineering projects.
E-learning technology will be used to facilitate training and educational collaboration with the participating Indian institution. NTU is a leading researcher in the field and was recently selected by Sun Microsystems as one of only three Centres of Excellence in e-learning globally.
"Our aim is for the twinning partnership to act as a gateway to more parties from both countries and to encourage further collaboration," said Prof Lim Mong King, Deputy President, NTU. "Long-term, we hope for this relationship to be expanded to include government agencies in India and Singapore, other industry partners and academic institutions."
"Sun is a major end-to-end technology provider and we invest close to US$2 billion in R&D each year," said Kim Jones, vice president, Global Education and Research for Sun Microsystems, Inc. "We have long appreciated our relationships with academia and have found them to be a constant source of innovation and value. The main thrust of the twinning programme is to reinforce existing links and to encourage new research initiatives. From here, we intend to create a framework for the extension of the twinning programme worldwide."
