I too have been surprised by the poor state of research compute at American universities. Of course it's hard: that's why it needs some smart and expensive peop

I too have been surprised by the poor state of research compute at American universities. Of course it's hard: that's why it needs some smart and expensive people who do research on computing to run it (but that's what universities are all about). But maybe it's a cultural thing: in the US organizations including universities like to rely on commercial services when they can instead of seeing the value of doing it in-house.