Intel has announced $30 million (18 million) of investment to research the future of the cloud.
The money will fund two new Intel science and technology centres (ISTC), based at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
It comes from the $100 million fund set aside by the chipmaker for ISTCs over the next five years, with the goal of bringing academic researchers closer to leading innovators at Intel to improve its products.
These particular centres will focus on both cloud and embedded computing studies though, as Intel tries to extend its cloud vision.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley, Princeton University and Intel itself, will examine topics such as built-in application optimisation, big data analytics in the cloud and localisation of the cloud towards the network edge or mobile devices.
"In the future, these capabilities could enable a digital personal handler via a device wired into your glasses that sees what you see, to constantly pull data from the cloud and whisper information to you during the day telling you who people are, where to buy an item you just saw or how to adjust your plans when something new comes up," said Intel.
The company also used the announcement as an opportunity to open up its ISTC project to more academics. It has called for US-based researchers to submit two page outlines of possible projects for a new ISTC to focus on and said it hopes to open another centre from the applications in 2012.
There are already two centres in operation, researching visual computing and secure computing.
