State cash likely for NGI project

By RICHARD PAMATATAU

The Government is tipped to inject some cash into the Next Generation Internet project which New Zealand universities say is mandatory for the country to compete in the knowledge economy.

Pundits say the project to give academia access to a fast network could cost as much as $250 million.

Information Technology and Communications Minister Paul Swain said last week that there would be some good "NGI" material in the budget because the Government recognised how critical this area was.

He was addressing delegates to the Directions conference put on by industry research house IDC.

Swain refused to elaborate on how much money might be available or if the Government would be looking for a fiscal partnering relationship with organisations taking an approach similar to its move to drive broadband access through regional New Zealand under Project Probe.

Next Generation Internet is being driven by Victoria University.

It aims to let researchers and academics plug into vast databases at speeds up to 200 times faster than Telecom's "high-speed" Jetstream.

Victoria University computing professor John Hine said earlier this year that such a network was critical because academic research and experiments were now often conducted collaboratively around the world. "These networks are changing the way science is done," he said.

Sharing number-crunching or simulation over a large number of computers or processors meant a lot more could be done, he said.

An example was researchers at Victoria gathering astronomical data from a telescope that was managed remotely rather than sitting on a mountain top somewhere.

Swain said the Government had done a lot of work on NGI .

Swain also discussed the Government's website for skilled migrants.

He said the site allowed migrants to fill in online forms allocating theme points.

As it progressed, the Government would be proactive about getting the skills it wanted.

Swain is taking a trade mission to the Middle East later this month.

He said the mission would travel to Dubai, Damascus, Lebanon, Egypt and Teheran, and there were likely to be significant opportunities in Iraq for New Zealand companies once things settled down there.