Back on October 31, 2003, I wrote about supercomputers as the economic development infrastructure. I suggested that regions that wanted to have a real marketing edge invest in a modest supercomputer cluster and rent it out to businesses that wanted occasional access to such equipment but could not justify the cost of owning it.
Today, Sun Computers had a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal advertising their supercomputer cluster for hire, at a rate of $1/hour/CPU. That's a good bit higher than what some universities like Virginia Tech are charging for business access to their supercomputer facilities, but it shows that there is a market out there.
How about your region? Are you still building steel-sided shell buildings that are sitting empty, or are you ready to enter the Knowledge Economy with some investments that businesses really want?