News

UC San Diego Institute Teams with Darkstrand To Connect Industry to Research

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 04/21/09

The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at the University of California, San Diego will partner with Darkstrand, a company that operates a high-speed optical network nationwide. Organizations connected to the Darkstrand Network will be able to work with researchers at Calit2 who have expertise in cyber infrastructure and visualization.

Calit2 is a research institute built in 2000 by the State of California to accelerate innovation through research in telecommunications and IT. The organization works to bring together companies, global experts, and researchers at both UC San Diego and its sister Calit2 division at UC Irvine in cross-industry teams for project work in dozens of specialized labs. Companies located anywhere on Darkstrand's 15,000-mile route footprint will now have a more direct line to the research expertise and computing resources made available at Calit2.

"Collaboration on the Darkstrand Network, with the research facilities and expertise available at Calit2, gives corporations the same capability to leverage new technology for discovery and development that has, until now, been available only within the research community," said Thomas DeFanti, senior research scientist at Calit2. "Even on projects of short duration, the effort can be intense and the results dramatic."

Darkstrand provides companies with access to the National LambdaRail, a high-speed optical network that is currently spread across 30 cities in the United States.

Calit2 is located on the UC San Diego campus, which also is home to the San Diego Supercomputer Center and a 150-fiber network linking diverse research laboratories at the university. Calit2's corporate partners include Qualcomm, Boeing, DuPont, Intel, HP, and Sony.