CALIT2 continues to invest in the development of cutting-edge technologies that can enable advances across multiple sectors and industries. Building on past successes, the institute continues to develop ‘living laboratories’ and research spaces to house multidisciplinary collaborations – ensuring that the breadth and crosscutting nature of CALIT2’s research teams will result in new technologies, systems and expertise that are consistent with the institute’s successes to date.
THE PATH FORWARD PLAN
In 2010, CALIT2 implemented a cross-campus participatory process to develop a strategic plan referred to as the Path Forward. The plan identified four application thrusts – health, energy, the environment and culture, and four key enabling technologies – wireless telecommunications, photonics, nanotechnology/MEMS and cyberinfrastructure. The Path Forward plan draws on faculty interests, campus thrusts, national and industry interests, and global technology and funding trends.
THE NEXT DECADE
In 2020, CALIT2 is well-positioned to lead the campus into society’s data-rich future – from the building’s ground floor, where new materials for personal energy harvesting are being developed, to the fourth-floor Data Engineering ThinkTank, where UCI and industry will collaborate on state-of-the-art machine-learning technology to create edge-computing methods for advanced manufacturing optimization. To implement this future vision, we are working closely with UCI’s Research Cyberinfrastructure Center and leveraging NSF resources from the Qualcomm Institute at UCSD. With our Data Engineering ThinkTank providing an interactive window into the state-of-the-art computing and storage resources provided by the Pacific Research Platform, CALIT2 will come to provide a new distributed shared facility for campus researchers to conduct digitally enabled scientific research. We believe this effort will transform UCI into a major leader in cyber-engineering and in developing edge-computed Internet of Everything technology for data refinement.
Over the past years, CALIT2 has successfully demonstrated its ability to establish and manage shared-use facilities and scientific instrumentation for UCI researchers. In the next five years, CALIT2 will build the next-generation, shared cyberinfrastructure, enabling a wide spectrum of research in the Age of Data.
