With leadership from researchers at the Renaissance Computing Institute, UNC-Chapel Hill and its partners will build a platform, called FABRIC, to provide a testbed for reimagining how data can be stored, computed and moved through shared infrastructure.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will lead a $20 million project to create a platform for testing novel internet architectures that could enable a faster, more secure internet.
With leadership from researchers at the Renaissance Computing Institute, UNC-Chapel Hill and its partners will build a platform, called FABRIC, to provide a testbed for reimagining how data can be stored, computed and moved through shared infrastructure. FABRIC, funded by the National Science Foundation, will allow scientists to explore what a new internet could look like at scale, and help determine the internet architecture of the future.
A series of government-funded programs from the 1960s through the 1980s established the computer networking architectures that formed the basis for today’s internet. FABRIC will help test new network designs that could overcome current bottlenecks and continue to extend the internet’s broad benefits for science and society. FABRIC will explore the balance between the amount of information a network maintains, its scalability, performance and security.
Originally published Sept. 17, 2019.