MRI: Acquisition of a National CyberGIS Facility for Computing and Data-Intensive Geospatial Research and Education

协作、交互和可扩展的知识发现，其形式是处理和可视化大量复杂的地理空间数据，并执行相关的分析和模拟；对于实现新兴的、充满活力的跨学科领域——基于先进网络基础设施的地理信息科学与系统（GIS）——在具有重大社会影响的广泛学科中实现计算和数据密集型研究和教育的重要作用至关重要。该项目通过建立CyberGIS设施作为一种创新工具来支持这些活动，该工具配备的功能包括高性能数据访问和大磁盘存储，配备先进图形处理单元的尖端计算，以及支持快速网络和动态提供云计算资源的可视化。在先进的网络基础设施和地理空间科学与技术的广泛背景下，CyberGIS设施代表了突破性的进步。该基金使研究人员能够解决多学科、生物、工程、地理和社会科学领域的各种重大和复杂的科学问题（例如，气候和天气预测、应急管理以及环境和能源可持续性），否则这些问题是不可能或难以解决的。各种教育和培训工作的广泛进展（例如，新课程、跨学科课程和在线学习材料）有助于培养下一代劳动力，以促进利用赛博地理信息系统的发现和创新。设施用户代表了广泛的学科，并进行了由不同机构和组织（例如，美国国家科学基金会、美国环境保护局、美国国立卫生研究院、美国国家航空航天局和美国地质调查局）赞助的前沿研究，这突出了该项目在实现广泛而重大的科学进步方面的影响。

Collaborative, interactive, and scalable knowledge discovery, in the form on processing and visualizing massive amounts of complex geospatial data and performing associated analysis and simulation, have become essential to fulfilling the important role of the emerging and vibrant interdisciplinary field of CyberGIS -- geographic information science and systems (GIS) based on advanced cyberinfrastructure -- in enabling computing- and data-intensive research and education across a broad swath of academic disciplines with significant societal impacts.This project supports these activities by establishing the CyberGIS Facility as an innovative instrument equipped with capabilities that include high-performance data access with large disk storage, cutting-edge computing configured with advanced graphics processing units, and visualization supported with fast network and dynamically provisioned cloud computing resources. The CyberGIS Facility represents a groundbreaking advance in the broad context of advanced cyberinfrastructure and geospatial sciences and technologies. The Facility enables researchers to solve a diverse set of major and complex scientific problems (e.g., climate and weather predictions, emergency management, and environmental and energy sustainability) in multidisciplinary, bio, engineering, geo, and social sciences that would otherwise be impossible or difficult to tackle. Extensive advances in various education and training efforts (e.g., new courses, cross-disciplinary curricula, and online learning materials) help to produce a next-generation workforce for fostering CyberGIS-enabled discoveries and innovations. Facility users represent a wide range of disciplines and conduct leading-edge research sponsored by various agencies and organizations (e.g., NSF, Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and U.S. Geological Survey), which highlight the impact that this project has in enabling broad and significant scientific advances.