U of I goes high tech

A new partnership between two massive computer companies and the University of Illinois will help consumer products use the same technology that drives high-speed supercomputers. Under an agreement announced Tuesday, the U of I will become home to one of two new research centers funded by Microsoft Corp. and Intel Incorp. The $18 million Universal Parallel Computing Research Center will involve 22 faculty members from the school's computer science and computer engineering departments. The center will begin work immediately to focus on mass-market use of so-called parallel computing, the process of having tasks performed at the same time on multiple processors.