Evolving the High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative to Support the Nation's Information Infrastructure (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-12
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Our domestic information technology industry is thriving now, based to a large extent on an extraordinary 50-year track record of public research funded by the federal government, creating the ideas and people that have let industry flourish. This record shows that for a dozen major innovations, 10 to 15 years have passed between research and commercial application (see Figure ES.1~.
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LucasPilm E&S, SGI. Arpanet, Intemct Ethemet, Pup, Datakit DECnet, LANs, TCP/IP Lisp machine, Stanford Xerox Alto Apollo, SUN Englebart~ Rochester Alto, SmalltaLIc Star, Mac, Microsoft Berlcdey, Stanford IBM 801 Sun, SOL IBM, HP Mead/Conway, Mosis Becl~dey S~pm,, Dat~mesh many miac 4, C.mmp, HPC IBM UPS, Intel CM-1, Teradata, T3D | Gov'tresealch Dusky research ~ ldduslry development · · · $1B lousiness | Transfer of ideas or people ~ l FIGURE ES.1 Government-sponsored computing research and development stimulates creation of innovative ideas and industries.
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government has invested broadly in computing research, creating new ideas and trained people. The result has been the development of important new technologies for time-sharing, networking, computer graphics, human-machine interfaces, and parallel computing, as well as major contributions to the design of very large scale integrated circuits, fast computers and disk systems, and workstations (see Figure ES.1; see also Chapter Box 1.2 for details)
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· Research trains people, who start companies or form a pool of trained personnel that existing companies can draw on to enter new markets quickly , , · Doing research involves taking risks. Not all public research programs have succeeded or led to clear outcomes even after many years.
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The original plans to achieve these goals called for creating dramatically faster computers and networks, stretching their limits with Grand Challenge problems in scientific computing, setting up supercomputer centers with the machines and experts needed to attack these challenges, and training people to build and exploit the new technology. More recently the focus has been shifting toward broader uses of computing and communications.
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In particular, the HPCCI has funded cross-disciplinary teams associated with the Grand Challenge projects to solve complex computational problems and produce essential new software for the new parallel systems. More specifically, the HPCCI has: · Increased the nation's stock of expertise by educating new students and attracting new researchers; · Made parallel computing widely accepted as the practical route to achieving high-performance computing; · Demonstrated the feasibility of and initiated deployment of parallel databases; · Driven progress on Grand Challenge problems in disciplines such as cosmology, molecular biology, chemistry, and materials science.
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Each participating agency retains responsibility for its own part of the program, but the agencies work together in joint funding of projects, such as the federal portions of the Internet; joint reviews of grants and contracts, such as the NSE-ARPA-NASA digital library initiative; joint testbeds; and
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Because it is a national research program and because of the many different but interdependent underlying technologies, the HPCCI is necessarily and properly far more diverse than a focused effort such as the Apollo moon landing program or a commercial product development program. In contrast to central management, coordination enhances the benefits of diversity by helping to prevent unintended duplication, redundancy, and missed opportunities.
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Incorporating this view of the importance and success of the government's investment in research, the 13 recommendations that follow address five areas: general research program, high-performance computing, networking and information infrastructure, the supercomputer centers and the Grand Challenge projects, and program coordination and management. Within each area the recommendations are presented in priority order.
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This dual emphasis contrasts with the narrower focus on scientific results that has driven work on the Grand Challenges. Supercomputer Centers and Grand Challenge Program The NSF supercomputer centers have played a major role in establishing parallel computing as a full partner with the prior paradigms of scalar and vector computing by providing access to
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10. The Grand Challenge program is an innovative approach to creating interdisciplinary and multi-institutional scientific research teams; however, continued use of HPCCI funds is appropriate only when the research contributes significantly to the development of new high-performance computing and communications hardware or software.
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Federal research funding agencies should promptly document the extent to which HPCCI funding is supporting important long-term research areas whose future funding should be independent of the future of the HPCCI. A number of preexisting agency programs have entered the HPCCI, with two effects: the HPCCI's budget appears to grow faster than the real growth of investment in high-performance computing and communications research, and important programs such as basic research in computing within NSF and ARPA may be in jeopardy should the HPCCI end.
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