US - Japan Formalize Collaboration in High-Performance Information and Communications Technology

July 26, 2006

CHICAGO --Formalizing a collaboration that puts Chicago at the hub of ultra-high-speed advanced optical network research and development exchanges with Japanese research and education institutions, a memorandum of understanding between the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NiCT) was signed today at a special ceremony on UIC's campus.

The NiCT-funded Japanese Advanced Testbed Network for Research and Development, known as JGN-II, links Japan with the US via StarLight, a National Science Foundation-funded advanced Internet switching facility located at Northwestern University's downtown Chicago campus and managed by UIC, Northwestern, and Argonne National Laboratory.

Japan's choice of Chicago's StarLight underscores confidence in both the technology and research being conducted by UIC and its partners to develop new application tools and techniques that enable, for example, real-time transmission of super-high-resolution images (four times the quality of current HDTV) and computer simulations over long-distance optical networks.

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