The recently established sPHENIX Collaboration at RHIC is upgrading the PHENIX detector in a way that will enable a comprehensive measurement of
jets in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The upgrade will give the experiment full azimuthal coverage within a pseudorapidity range of －1.1< η < 1.1. 
In addition to measuring heavy-ion collisions, the new apparatus will provide enhanced physics capabilities for studying nucleon-nucleus and polarized proton collisions, 
and eventually allow a Abstractdetailed study of electron-nucleus collisions at an envisioned Electron Ion Collider at Brookhaven.

I will talk about some of the physics goals and the design choices and also the challenges. As the DAQ coordinator of the PHENIX experiment, I
will present some of the R&D that is underway to achieve an envisioned data rate of 15Khz to disk.