About ADSC
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) , a Singapore government agency, have established a new research center in Singapore. The Advanced Digital Sciences Center is focused on breakthrough innovations in information technology that are expected to have a major impact in transforming human beings' utilization of information technology.
Facilities at Fusionopolis
ADSC is housed in Singapore's new Fusionopolis complex for high-tech research and development. Fusionopolis is adjacent to the National University of Singapore, the National University Hospital, and the INSEAD Business School, and about a kilometer from the Biopolis complex for bioengineering and genomic research, and. ADSC occupies 882 square meters in the Fusionopolis north tower. A free shuttle bus runs between Fusionopolis and Biopolis.
In addition to office space for staff and visitors, ADSC's facilities at Fusionopolis offer a conference room that seats 35, a computer room with servers and wireless Internet, a state-of-the-art videoconferencing facility, a kitchen, and a magnificent view over the hills of Singapore. Special facilities will be made available for computer vision research.
Fusionopolis is conveniently located in south central Singapore, with a stop of the Circle Line MRT in the basement. Fusionopolis offers serviced apartments, a large athletic center, and a medical clinic. In addition, the basement level contains every modern convenience needed for day-to-day life, including a food court, coffee shops, restaurants, a drugstore, a dry cleaner, a supermarket, a newsstand, an ATM, and a barber shop, among other amenities.
Singapore is an ideal setting for a high-tech research facility. Over 7,000 multinational corporations from the U.S., Japan, and Europe, plus another 3,000 from China and India, have invested in Singapore. Numerous leading high-tech companies have plants and offices in Singapore, including Acer Computer, Boeing, EADS, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, IBM, Microsoft, Mobile One, Seagate Technology, Siltronic Samsung Wafer, Sun Microsystems, and the United Microelectronics Corporation, among many others. They are joined by many leading multinationals in other fields, such as the pharmaceuticals & biomedicine industry (e.g., GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Merck & Co., Novartis, and Wyeth); banking & finance (e.g., BNP Paribas, Barclays, Prudential, and Credit Suisse); and chemicals & petrochemicals (e.g., Chevron Phillips, Eastman Chemical, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Sumitomo).
Facilities at Illinois
The facilities of the University of Illinois College of Engineering are unique in several respects. Facilities are designed from the ground up to support interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations. Illinois emphasizes hands-on laboratory experience as a central learning experience for both undergraduates and graduates. All twelve engineering departments feature extensive laboratory facilities. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for example, boasts some 30 undergraduate instructional laboratories, including a nationally renowned Controls Lab and an Operating System Development Lab. Laboratory experience is the foundation of graduate education in engineering, and the goal is a seamless integration of research and instruction. Graduate students may participate in the work of their advisors' laboratories, or they may undertake assignments in departmental laboratories or in any of the College's major interdisciplinary facilities.
One of the showpiece facilities at Illinois is the Computer Science Department's Thomas M. Siebel Center, which provides a working laboratory for students and researchers to explore and evaluate 21st-century computing. Everyday devices have embedded intelligence and are able to adapt to context and use, and share information and user preferences by means of ubiquitous communication networks. Information technology infrastructure was "designed in" from the beginning, with embedded computers in doors, offices, and laboratories, ubiquitous wearable devices, streaming multimedia and tracking, and microelectromechanical systems, all connected by wireless and high-speed wired networks for distributed collaboration and adaptation. As a result, CS researchers are familiar with the notions of living experimental spaces and how best to take advantage of the opportunities such facilities offer.
ADSC also takes advantage of the rich computing environment of the Coordinated Science Laboratory and Information Trust Institute. Researchers can apply the power of the Trusted ILLIAC to execute computationally intensive simulations or use it as a platform to test the scalability of their solutions. Servers, workstations, and personal computers running a wide variety of operating systems and application software provide a level of diversity that is a key component to addressing the challenges of telecommunications and information technology. The computer systems are networked through a mesh of high-speed Ethernet switches linked to the UIUCnet backbone. Access to CSL resources is monitored and controlled by a series of intrusion detection systems and firewalls. A virtual private network server provides secure connectivity for the convenience of outside collaborators. Within this framework reside testbed environments in which researchers may explore every aspect of computing, telecommunications, and information technology.
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