U.S. Supercomputing Research Gets a Boost

doi:10.1126/science.304.5674.1093b

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ScienceScope

Efforts to reinvigorate scientific supercomputing in the United States are picking up speed. The White House last week released an R&D blueprint for supercomputer development and endorsed legislation moving through Congress that aims to refocus federal funding programs. But some experts have concerns.

U.S. researchers are increasingly worried that they don't have access to the world's fastest computers (Science, 18 July 2003, p. 301). To close the gap, they are backing the High-Performance Computing Revitalization Act (H.R. 4218), which aims to update a 1991 law. "This is needed to crank the energy level back up," says computer scientist Daniel Reed of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who testified at a 13 May House Science Committee hearing on the bill.

That view was echoed by presidential science adviser John Marburger, who also released a preliminary road map for future research. It calls for shifting federal R&D programs toward machines tailored for science, not business. But some scientists cautioned that an emphasis on research rather than deployment could backfire. "The agencies could technically comply without deploying any new hardware," says computer scientist Richard Stevens of Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The House panel is expected to vote on the measure next month, but the bill may go no further this year.