The Idaho National Laboratory’s already impressive footprint in Idaho Falls is poised for some serious expansion. In a joint endeavor with the Idaho State Board of Education, INL is breaking ground on two new high-tech research facilities: the Cybercore Integration Center and the Collaborative Computing Center (C3). Both properties will be developed at the site’s education and research campus off of University Boulevard.
“Supporting this collaboration is about much more than new facilities; we are investing in Idaho’s future,” notes Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter. “The Lab is a major employer in its own right and has a global reputation that benefits many other Idaho businesses. But in addition to the INL’s continuing economic importance, this partnership provides Idaho universities with an important edge in preparing tomorrow’s world leaders in cybersecurity and nuclear energy research.”
According to a release from the INL, the Cybercore Integration Center will “host advanced electronics labs for industry, government and academia to work together to systematically engineer cyber and physical security innovations to protect the nation’s most critical infrastructure, like the power grid.”
Meanwhile, the new C3 facility will host “research collaborations and opportunities that would otherwise not be possible – a place where INL researchers, Idaho universities, and industry will explore computer modeling and simulation to develop new nuclear materials, advance nuclear energy concepts and conduct a broad span of scientific research.”
Cybercore and C3 join a growing family of campus facilities dedicated to the nation’s energy and security needs.
The gateway facility to the campus is the three-story Energy Innovation Laboratory -- 148,000-square-foot facility that houses 127 “flexible laboratory space modules” for energy and environmental research activities. Also on campus are the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, National and Homeland Security office and engineering facilities, and the 92,000-square-foot Energy Systems Laboratory.
--S. Smede