Holyoke High Tech Computing Center

Governor Patrick was in town today, once again facing a standing room only crowd. He announced a collaborative economic development project that will be sited in Holyoke.

My office is at Open Square in Holyoke; I live in downtown Holyoke; I am a Board Member of two Holyoke-based organizations; and I have clients based in Holyoke. Do I need to tell you that I'm thrilled? Probably not.

Participating organizations still need to hammer out a lot of details. But here's what they were prepared to disclose today: the Commonwealth, MIT, UMass, Boston University, Cicso, and EMC are going to collaborate on a high-tech computing center to serve their current and future computing and research needs. The center will be located somewhere - actual location to be determined - in Holyoke.

Project participants chose Holyoke after analyzing lots and lots of communities in Massachusetts. Holyoke won out for it's relatively low energy costs (computing centers need lots and lots of juice) and its central location as relates to broadband backbones running east/west on the MassPike, North/South on Route 91 (under construction now), and within the Pioneer Valley. They don't know it yet, but they also chose Holyoke because it's the coolest place around.

A hearty and heartfelt congratulations to every single person who contributed to today's announcment.