Exhaust systems whine. The floor, raised to allow the passage of cables underfoot, vibrates slightly.

Casually dressed workers monitor a batik of computer screens in a scene resembling the background set of a pre-game football show. The screens alert operators to any problems with the mainframe computers around them.

Those computers run orders from numerous state agencies, from processing lottery bets to computing paychecks for 80,000 state workers.

Welcome to the Pennsylvania PowerHouse.

Once spread around Harrisburg, the state's mainframe computers, magnetic tape drives and tape libraries are here, crowded into a brightly lit, climate-controlled room in a building on the bucolic grounds of Harrisburg State Hospital.

Access to state-of-the-art technology, tight security measures and round-the-clock monitors are the main advantage of the data center. And they're something few agencies could have afforded on their own, state officials said.

Run under a 7-year, $515 million contract with Montgomery County-based Unisys Corp., the project is one of the largest information technology jobs a state has yielded to the private sector.