Technology Innovation Center
By Tyler Patchen Health and Technology Reporter, Birmingham Business Journal
UAB has opened a new building on campus.
The institution has opened the recently completed Technology Innovation Center. The $26.5 million, 37,500-square-foot building is now home to UAB’s Security Operations Center and Network Operations Center.
The Technology Innovation Center is located on the corner of 17th Street South and Ninth Avenue South. The Center hosts 17,500 square feet of office space and 4,600 square feet for its data hall. The building also offers hoteling space for hybrid work and intentionally designed spaces and conference rooms. The building also boasts other innovative features to meet the technology needs of UAB students, faculty, researchers and clinicians.
The Technology Innovation center also houses UAB’s Cheaha supercomputer, the fastest computer of its kind in the state and the data highway that connects researchers throughout the University of Alabama System.
“UAB has empowered our team to be agents of innovation, and now we have a world-class facility to help accelerate that innovation,” said Curtis Carver Jr., chief information officer. “This building is the result of a massive collaboration — one of the hallmarks of UAB — and represents a tangible and strategic investment in future innovation, in our people and in the support that our customers seek for years to come.”
The center also houses a data center, expandable technology infrastructure, fast university internet connectivity and colocation for UAB’s partners in distributed IT. According to UAB, powering the building’s data center is a cost-efficient Tesla Powerpack battery system which aims to help reduce their carbon footprint while increasing system reliability.
“UAB has a rich tradition of pursuing and achieving ambitious goals, and nowhere is that more apparent in recent years than in IT, as we continually become faster, bigger, and better — driven by exceptional talent and top technology, including a supercomputer that is the fastest in the state and among the fastest in the Southeast,” said Ray Watts, UAB’s president. “The Technology Innovation Center further accelerates campus-wide collaboration and innovation, academic success, and groundbreaking discoveries, and makes UAB and the UA System more competitive than ever, as we continue growing a robust, technology-based economy for our region and state.”