One win. One loss.

The new Pittsburgh Dataworks consortium announced last week is the start of what can be a big win. Of all the good things happening in Pittsburgh economically, this has the potential to be the biggest. Yes, bigger than gas extraction from the Marcellus shale.

Big data is where it's going. It's moving very fast however and Pittsburgh is merely "on trend", maybe even behind the curve. The Bay Area and Boston are years ahead. But it’s very important here that IBM is involved. That's huge given the history of what happens when IBM stakes a claim.

Consider the Silicon Valley. Admittedly it was first a plucky company called Fairchild Semiconductor that basically "started" the Silicon Valley. But when IBM put down roots a few years later and eventually transferred some hundred engineers from New York, the Valley really took off. That was now over 50 years ago.  A more recent example is Austin. IBM established its engineering group for PCs, in conjunction with the Micro Chip Consortium [MCC] in the late 70s, taking off in the early 80s. IBM is still in Austin with a massive campus just north of town. The rest is history, as they say. That was approximately 30 years ago.  Big [bang] economic development takes time, but it's gotta start somewhere.

It will take some time for Pittsburgh’s efforts and technology has a much shorter "half life" these days. That does concern me. But big data probably isn't going away. And the folks that work in big data are geniuses; PhDs in mathematics mostly. Big data people make big money. They supply high value add and are rewarded as such.  This is a big win.

 

A big loss was recorded this week when Texas A&M University with Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced GlaxoSmithKline, headquartered in Pennsylvania by the way, will partner with A&M to build a $91million flu vaccine facility.  Seems to me that Pitt and UPMC had been exploring a drug development and testing facility in Pittsburgh but gave up saying there wasn’t enough government subsidy for the project.

I am sure there were differences in the proposals and maybe even the configuration of the two facilities.  I remember that Pitt’s facility was estimated to cost well north of $100 million.  But was private sector involvement by a pharmaceutical firm ever considered? Note too that MD Anderson Cancer Center is also involved in the Texas site.  I believe UPMC’s Cancer Center is ranked top 10 in the US but MD Anderson is usually considered number one.  OK, but, putting the pieces together to make this happen is a huge boost for biomedical jobs in Houston [the big city close to A&M at College Station] but also central Texas as well.  Both places are already enjoying the nation’s best economic growth rates.

The oil and gas sector won’t grow forever.  But healthcare and pharmaceuticals will always be a part of human existence.  Pitt and UPMC should have worked harder for something like this facility.  I suspect however there is great need for others.  Pittsburgh should make sure it’s next up to the plate.