Norman R. Scott, vice president for research and advanced studies at Cornell, today (March 28) issued the following statement upon receiving news that Cornell had not been successful in the latest round of supercomputing competition sponsored by the National Science Foundation:

"Cornell University is deeply disappointed by the National Science Board decision not to include the Cornell Theory Center among the two institutions that were awarded the National Science Foundation's new Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure program. For the past ten years, the Cornell Theory Center has served as one of the original national centers in supercomputing supported by the NSF under a previous program; that program's support for the Center will now enter a phase-out period.

"We are very proud of the Theory Center's record of achievement, which has provided the highest-end computing resources to thousands of this nation's researchers. In fact, in recent years the Theory Center has provided one-third of the computing power of the four existing supercomputing centers. Breakthroughs in many fields of science and engineering have been accomplished as a result of this support. The expertise and dedication to high performance computing of the Center's staff is highly regarded nationally and internationally.

"We at Cornell regret the decision of the National Science Board, because we believe that it is not in the best interests of the nation's research infrastructure to diminish the work of this outstanding national resource and seek to recreate its unique services elsewhere."