A crowd of academic leaders and state officials watched in awe as workers secured the final steel beam atop a 90 thousand square foot structure in downtown Holyoke, Massachusetts today. The ceremony signaled the start of the final phase of construction for what  Governor Deval Patrick says will be  the most powerful hi-speed computing center east of the Mississippi.

The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center is expected to create 600 construction jobs, and once it opens in a a year, 130 university research jobs, and 13 permanent positions at the center. The center will house  hi-speed computers to meet the research needs of the five state universities that have helped PAY FOR the 95 million dollar facility. Boston University, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts along with THE EMC Corporation and Cisco Systems Inc say  they plan to share findings on topics ranging from climate change to cyber security.

Massachusetts Governor Patrick says the center will transform Holyoke's struggling economy.

"The instinct for innovation, the tradition of invention goes back many many years here in Holyoke and it will be revived by this project," he said at today's ceremony.

The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center has been designed as an energy efficient building — and will depend on low-cost electricity from Holyoke's hydro-driven municipal electricity system