A new partnership between New Mexico State University and Japanese chipmaker Fujitsu Limited marks the start of a pioneering international collaboration in advanced computing and technology innovation targeting the state's top economic sectors.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding establishing the partnership last week ahead of a trade summit in Santa Fe.
"This partnership reflects NMSU's deep commitment to advancing research and innovation that directly benefits New Mexico and the nation," NMSU President Valerio Ferme said. "By working with Fujitsu, we are not only building state-of-the-art research infrastructure but also reimagining how universities prepare students and communities to address a rapidly changing world with the tools of high-performance and edge computing workflows."
"NMSU is taking a lead in applied computing and forging global partnerships collaboration, and this important partnership with Fujitsu reflects my efforts to deepen New Mexico's ties with Japan through initiatives like the New Mexico-Japanese Economic Trade Summit," Lujan Grisham said. "As we plan new economic partnerships with Japan, we foster international cooperation that drive innovation and economic growth here in New Mexico."
The partnership will establish a Fujitsu-NMSU national testbed at the intersection of high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and edge computing. The project will leverage Fujitsu's power-efficient, high-performance FUJITSU-MONAKA chip technology to accelerate innovation in critical areas of need for New Mexico.
"The Fujitsu-NMSU testbed marks a transformative step in strengthening NMSU's research enterprise and national leadership as a land-grant university, said Patricia Sullivan, NMSU's interim vice president for Research, Creativity and Economic Development. "Testbeds of this kind are where discovery becomes innovation, enabling researchers and students to experiment, validate, and deploy new technologies that advance our nation's priorities in computing, energy, and resource resilience."
The Fujitsu partnership was initiated by NMSU's Research Computing Vision Team, a dedicated group that has worked on behalf of NMSU's faculty to bring advanced computing resources to campus and strengthen research programs across disciplines. Assistant Vice President for Research Tanner Schaub said the Fujitsu partnership represents a game-changing opportunity for infrastructure development in support NMSU's AI, edge, and machine learning research initiatives that directly enable the land- and space-grant missions.
At the MOU signing ceremony, Ferme noted the broader context of the partnership and its implications for NMSU's future.
"Technology alone is not the story. The real story is what this partnership makes possible: new opportunities for our students to work on global problems; new pathways for small and rural communities to access advanced computing resources; and new solutions for sectors critical to our future: energy, water, security, and health," Ferme said at the ceremony. "This is what the land-grant promise looks like in the 21st century: advancing science that serves people, and doing so in partnership with those who share our values of innovation, responsibility, and sustainability."
The testbed's resources will support advanced applications across a range of fields, including precision agriculture, microgrids and grid-tied applications, water and environmental monitoring, and aerospace and space technologies.
By creating a shared research and development ecosystem at NMSU, this collaboration will serve as a platform for testing and validating Fujitsu's cutting-edge technology in real-world environments while expanding New Mexico's research capacity and technical workforce.
Michael Coleman with the New Mexico Office of the Governor contributed to this report.
The full article can be seen at https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-partners-with-fujitsu-on-computing-technology-testbed/s/f1a6ee97-f59d-4fe9-8297-d60d1ede1210
