It's difficult to create a state sponsored computing model that is "cash-in and cash-out," or pay for itself, Stacey Simmons, associate director of economic development at Louisiana's State Universities Center for Computation & Technology. The goal of the center is build the talent pool of people who can work with in high performance environments. Success is "reaching a level of expertise of how many people can use the resources and use meaningfully."

Louisiana wants to build a talent base of people who can work in large parallel environments, said Stacey Simmons, associate director of economic development at Louisiana's State Universities Center for Computation & Technology. Success is "reaching a level of expertise of how many people can use the resources and use meaningfully."

Louisiana's focus on HPC prompted Electronic Arts Inc., a Redwood City, Calif.-based developer of computer games and other interactive entertainment software, to announce last August a plan to create a test center in Baton Rouge that will eventually have 200 employees.

Despite the initial challenges, Bowles said he is talking to genomic and medical research firms and others about New Mexico's system. He believes that there is "growing awareness of ," and its range of applications is expanding.