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| Midwest Regional Data Center | |
|---|---|
| Name | Midwest Regional Data Center |
| Established | 2003 |
| Location | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Type | Regional data repository and computing hub |
| Director | Dr. Marianne Holt |
| Staff | 85 |
Midwest Regional Data Center The Midwest Regional Data Center is a regional repository and computational hub serving scientific, civic, and commercial stakeholders across the American Midwest. It aggregates, preserves, and distributes datasets and computational resources to institutions involved with climate research, public health, transportation planning, and economic development. The center coordinates with universities, federal agencies, and state laboratories to support data-intensive initiatives and to enable reuse across disciplines.
The center functions as a multidisciplinary node connecting institutions such as University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, Purdue University, and Ohio State University with national programs like National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Institutes of Health, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Department of Energy. It provides custodial services for datasets produced by projects at Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, CERN, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, and collaborations with museums such as the Field Museum and archives such as the Chicago History Museum. The center also engages with municipal partners like the City of Chicago and regional consortia including the Great Lakes Commission and Midwest Big Data Hub.
Founded in 2003 as a cooperative initiative between state universities and national laboratories, the center emerged during the expansion of cyberinfrastructure projects funded by the National Science Foundation and coordinated with the Rackspace era of hosted services and initiatives similar to Teragrid and XSEDE. Early partnerships included grant collaborations with Argonne National Laboratory and programmatic alignment with Purdue University's computing initiatives and University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign's National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Over time, the center expanded through memoranda of understanding with state agencies such as the Illinois Department of Public Health and regional planning bodies like the Metropolitan Planning Council. Major milestones include accreditation under archival standards advocated by the Society of American Archivists and integration with data catalogs modeled after Data.gov and NOAA Big Data Program.
Physical infrastructure includes a flagship campus facility sited near research parks and transit hubs in the Chicago Loop corridor, co-located with compute partners such as Argonne National Laboratory and regional nodes linked to Purdue Research Park and the Cleveland Clinic research campus. The facility houses high-density server halls, modular raised-floor data halls, and disaster-resilient design elements inspired by standards from Uptime Institute and guidance from Federal Emergency Management Agency. Networking connectivity uses backbone peering points including IN-4 exchange analogs, metropolitan fiber footprints associated with Crown Castle, and peering with national research and education networks such as Internet2 and ESnet. Environmental controls follow techniques promoted by ASHRAE and energy efficiency programs aligned with Department of Energy initiatives.
Operational offerings range from long-term archival storage and metadata curation to on-demand virtual machines, container orchestration, and high-performance computing scheduling used by teams at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. Data stewardship workflows conform to practices popularized by FAIR principles implementations at institutions like University of California, Berkeley and tooling compatible with Globus transfer services and Kubernetes orchestration. The center supports domain-specific services for climate model output from NOAA and NASA missions, epidemiological datasets used by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers, and transportation analytics used by agencies collaborating with Federal Highway Administration. Training programs for data science and curation have been run in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University and regional community colleges.
Governance is performed by a consortium board with representatives from partner institutions including University of Illinois System, Indiana University, Ohio State University, and municipal stakeholders such as City of Chicago and Cook County. Advisory input has come from federal partners like NSF and DOE, and legal counsel has referenced precedents from case law involving data stewardship in matters adjudicated within courts such as the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Funding streams combine competitive grants from agencies like National Science Foundation programs, cooperative agreements with National Institutes of Health centers, subscription revenue from healthcare partners such as Mayo Clinic, and philanthropic awards from foundations such as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Kresge Foundation.
Security architecture adheres to frameworks modeled after National Institute of Standards and Technology guidance and implements controls consistent with Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program principles. Compliance spans requirements from Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act when processing protected health information from hospitals, to contractual clauses required by National Institutes of Health for human subjects data, and export-control considerations invoked under International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Operational security includes continuous monitoring using tools and procedures paralleling those used by Department of Defense research networks, and periodic audits by accredited assessors aligned with standards from ISO and the Center for Internet Security benchmarks.
The center has catalyzed regional research such as collaborative projects with University of Wisconsin–Madison on Great Lakes modeling, public health surveillance in cooperation with Illinois Department of Public Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and transportation resilience initiatives with Metra and the Illinois Department of Transportation. Educational outreach includes internships with Oakton Community College and workshops run with American Library Association-affiliated libraries. Partnerships extend internationally through data-sharing relationships with institutions like Environment and Climate Change Canada and research collaborations involving Imperial College London and ETH Zurich. The center’s role in regional innovation ecosystems aligns it with economic development agencies such as the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership and technology incubators like 1871.
Category:Data centers in the United States