More Mississippians who know how to run supercomputers are needed, Gov. Haley Barbour said at Wednesday’s dedication of the newest supercomputer in Vicksburg.

Barbour told an audience of about 150 at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ information-technology research facility on Porters Chapel Road that it’s essential for Mississippi children to have a chance to learn advanced skills.

The supercomputer is a Cray XT3. It was installed in November, ranking then as the largest supercomputer in the public inventory of U.S. Department of Defense and the 14th largest in the world.

&#8220It’s run by a bunch of smart people, and that’s got to be our focus: Generating more generations of smart people like y’all,” Barbour told his audience, which included many federal computer scientists.

The dedication was held on the Waterways Experiment Station site, headquarters for the Corps’ Engineer Research and Development Center and four of its seven laboratories.

No single event or place better symbolizes not only ERDC’s strength or Mississippi’s greatest economic-development issue in today’s knowledge-based economy, Barbour said.

&#8220The world is changing and the velocity of change is ever faster,” Barbour said. &#8220The state’s No. 1 job is to educate your children so that they can be part of what comes next.”

Although legislators fell short of fully funding the formulas of the Mississippi Adequate Education Act as established in 1997, Barbour pointed out that during each of the first two years of his administration state spending on K-12 education has risen 19 percent, including the consecutive 8 percent raises for teachers specified for the last two years of a state plan. He said the state Legislature’s keeping its word on the raises was especially important because having and retaining qualified teachers is essential for improvement.

After declining, spending on education at the community-college and university levels will increase in July and the state’s budget for work force-development programs has doubled, Barbour said.

Barbour also commented on ERDC’s direct economic impact, saying that of Department of Defense installations in the state only the Gulf Coast’s Keesler Air Force Base has a larger payroll.

&#8220It throws off progress for everybody – for Vicksburg, yes, in terms of payroll and investment,” Barbour said of ERDC’s Vicksburg operations. &#8220But it (also) generates progress for the whole world.”

Barbour compared the research done at ERDC and its spillover effects to that done by the U.S. space program.

&#8220Think of all the things we have in the world today as a result of the work done by Department of Defense research,” he said.

And the governor cited ERDC’s general impact on Vicksburg, saying its employees &#8220and their families bring a wonderful leavening to the community that so many communities just wouldn’t have. It’s just a Godsend for Mississippi.”

The ITL at the federal base is named for former U.S. Rep. Jamie Whitten, who was a principal in seeking funds to establish the complex.

Engineers use the computers for design, modeling and simulated testing of civil works projects.