Monroe, La.- based CenturyLink (LUMN -0.76%), America's third largest telecom, has landed a sizable 10-year, $750 million ceiling-value contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.
In an announcement that went out Tuesday, CenturyLink described the Defense Research and Engineering Network III contract as being part of the DoD's High Performance Computing Modernization Program, which "aims to solve complicated and time-consuming problems with massively parallel computing and very high-speed networking." So essentially, this is a Pentagon supercomputer project.
CenturyLink's role in the project will be to provide Ethernet, Internet protocol, and optical wave services through a virtual private local area network service aboard a high-speed, fiber-optic network that connects the department's supercomputers and researchers at 150 locations nationwide, at data speeds ranging from 50 megabits to 100 gigabits per second.
CenturyLink shares responded positively to the news, gaining 1.4% in Tuesday trading to close at $37.89.
