Aug. 7, 2025 — The National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were awarded a $25.8 million contract from the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) for high-performance computing in support of NGA strategic partnerships, advancement of artificial intelligence, and machine learning and logistics for data production on a global scale.

NGA Director Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth announced the awarded contract in May at the 2025 GEOINT Symposium in St. Louis.

NCSA has long partnered with NGA through the New Frontiers Initiative, providing support for geospatial and geo-intelligence research and education through its world-class computing resources and fellowship opportunities, and potentially saving months of time in data processing and analysis. Illinois is also a member of the Taylor Geospatial Institute (TGI) Consortium, while NCSA is the home of TGI’s U.S. National Science Foundation-funded Regional AI Learning System (RAILS) to accelerate geospatial science and discovery.

“The New Frontiers Initiative is proud to continue our partnership with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency by providing state-of-the-art computing resources to spur innovation and speed to insight in support of NGA’s national priorities,” said William Kramer, executive director of NFI at Illinois.

The new contract is Illinois’ next step in offering technical support and expertise in efforts related to national security and preparedness. Previously, the university and NCSA supported the ArticDEM and EarthDEM project, and research and development efforts with NGA researchers in areas such as gravity modeling, bathymetry and flood inundation. The new contract will help modernize NGA Foundation GEOINT operations, including the creation of geoscience data, terrain, imagery and 3D geospatial-intelligence.

“This is an important next step in Illinois’ efforts to expand its contribution in national security and preparedness,” Kramer said. “This relationship started over 10 years ago as NGA, Illinois and others worked on ArticDEM, using NCSA’s Blue Waters system and NGA-supplied satellite data to make high-resolution maps of the entire land surface. Illinois’ expertise in high-performance computing, AI and geospatial research continues to help accelerate insight in these areas.”