A proliferation of high performance cluster and grid computing and Web services applications will yield substantial productivity gains in the United States and worldwide over the next decade. North Carolina's economy will benefit significantly from those gains provided two things occur. First, the broadband infrastructure needed to support grid computing and Web services must be developed in a timely fashion. Second, the state must attract (or grow from within) a sufficient pool of skilled computer and communications professionals to fully deploy and utilize the new technologies and applications.

This study estimates that, given adequate access to broadband infrastructure and sufficient IT workforce, the deployment of high performance grid computing and Web services applications would contribute the following gains to North Carolina's economy over 2010 baseline growth forecasts:

• An additional $10.1 billion in output;
• An additional 1.5 percent in aggregate labor productivity;
• An additional $7.2 billion in personal income;
• An additional 24,000 jobs, the net result of 55,700 new jobs created from increased industrial growth and 31,700 jobs lost due to the adoption of new grid and Web services technologies and downsizing;
• An additional $1.2 billion in expenditures for communications services, with 80 to 90 percent of the new spending devoted to the purchase of broadband access.

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