Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and IBM are setting up a high performance facility to act as a research and business analytics centre.
The university says it has already began offering training and certification in collaboration with IBM on these areas.
Speaking yesterday at the Connected Kenya conference in Diani, Prof Mabel Imbuga, ph.D , EBS Vice Chancellor JKUAT said, “We are setting up a high performance big data lab for research and development. The 8 terabyte processing unit is already installed and in use for IBM’s business analytics, data analytics, cloud computing, mobile apps development and cyber security offering.”
The university will host the CODATA cloud facility for open data support for research, training, and innovation. According to her, the university is setting up the facility in conjunction with Inspur, a Japanase firm to boost the facility with high performance computing servers.
At the moment, the university has established an Open Data centre to generate most value from the high performance computing facilities.
Situated in Nairobi, JKUAT started in 1981 as a Middle Level College and was finally established as a University through the JKUAT Act, 1994 and inaugurated on 7th December 1994. Known for its tech expos, the university has been at the forefront of innovations in the country and has produced a number of engineers in the country. The new data cente will help the campus up its research and development to help its continue with its mission as a University of global excellence in Training, Research and Innovation for development.