A new Intel "mega-laboratory" for research and development will open this year in Costa Rica. The new mega-lab will carry out testing and quality control operations for the entire product portfolio before they go on to manufacturing. The new laboratory should start operations in a couple of months, as announced by Intel, and is planning to open about 350 new positions. In addition to the new R&D laboratory, there are ongoing discussions between the Costa Rican government and Intel to open a new laboratory for small and medium sized businesses to share knowledge and collaborate, as a way to spark new initiatives and promote the entrepreneurship in the country.
This new R&D laboratory is a great opportunity to incubate and expand the HPC knowledge in the region. As the purpose of the lab is to test and validate Intel products, Highly skilled engineers will develop more expertise in code parallelization and highly efficient optimization techniques that improve efficiency of HPC applications in terms of time to completion, but also in terms of energy consumption. Furthermore, the new mega-lab is expected to fuel the HPC development in the region, as undergraduate and graduate student do internships in the lab and universities develop collaboration projects with Intel that can lead to new high performance software leveraging features of the Intel products being tested. This initiative could even spark a new IPCC in the region.
This new R&D laboratory is a great opportunity to incubate and expand the HPC knowledge in the region. As the purpose of the lab is to test and validate Intel products, Highly skilled engineers will develop more expertise in code parallelization and highly efficient optimization techniques that improve efficiency of HPC applications in terms of time to completion, but also in terms of energy consumption. Furthermore, the new mega-lab is expected to fuel the HPC development in the region, as undergraduate and graduate student do internships in the lab and universities develop collaboration projects with Intel that can lead to new high performance software leveraging features of the Intel products being tested. This initiative could even spark a new IPCC in the region.
The new laboratory comes as wave of fresh air to Costa Rica, as the giant chip manufacturer closed their chip assembly plant in Costa Rica last year. A total of 1500 employees lost their job as part of this restructuring operation. "The best long-term solution to maximize global operational efficiency and effectiveness is to close its assembly and testing operations in Costa Rica" announced Intel in a statement last year. Intel has been operating in Costa Rica since 1997 and produced over $2 billions in annual exports, which represents about 20% of the Costa Rica annual exports.
While the number of new jobs opened by the new R&D laboratory is just a fraction of the previous manufacturing line, this still represents a great opportunity for engineers and future graduates in the region. Joining the movement, the cloud computing company VMware announced recently that they will be expanding their team in Costa Rica to reach 400 employees in 2015. VMware started operations in Costa Rica in 2012 with only 3 employees. Their quick expansion in the region has been seen as a positive sign for the cloud computing market in Latin America.
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