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Week Ending March 16, 2006

H.R.1068 To amend the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991.

The bill report explains that “High-performance computing and networking is an essential component of U.S. scientific, industrial, and military competitiveness, and the U.S. is still highly competitive in this field.”  “The Federal government promotes high-performance computing and networking in several different ways. First, it funds research and development at universities, government laboratories and companies to help develop new hardware and software; second, it funds the purchase of high-performance computers for universities and government laboratories and supports access to high-speed networks; and third, it provides access to high-performance computers for a wide variety of researchers by allowing them to use government-supported computers at universities and government laboratories.”

High-performance computing means “advanced computing, communications, and information technologies, including supercomputer systems, high-capacity and high-speed networks, special purpose and experimental systems, applications and systems software and the management of large data sets,” the bill report explained.

Long term basic and applied research is provided for in this bill to increase research and development on technologies to advance the capacity and capabilities of high-performance computing and increase access to high-speed computers by the US research communities to solve advanced scientific and engineering problems.

The bill recognizes and addresses software availability, productivity, capability, security, portability and reliability and includes for experimental testbed networks and other efforts to enable research and development on and the demonstration of advanced applications enabled by the networks.

Computational science and engineering research on math modeling and algorithms for all applications as well as tech support and research and development on high-performance computer systems and software required to address Grand Challenges are provided for.

Grand Challenges are “fundamental problems in science or engineering, with broad economic and scientific impact, whose solution will require the application of high-performance computing resources and multidisciplinary teams of researches.”

Under graduate and graduate students in software engineering, computer science, computer and network security, applied mathematics, library and information sciences and computational science are to be provided for as is improving the security of computing and networking systems along with security standards and practices of the systems.

The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy is required to establish the goals and priorities for research, development, networking and other activities; establish program component areas that implement the goals established for the Program and identify Grand Challenges that the Program should address; provide for interagency coordination of the R&D and develop and maintain a R&D deployment roadmap to provide for use of the computers for use by the US research community.

A report to Congress is required as is consultation with academic, state and other groups conducting research on and using high-performance computers. The report will describe the Program components. An advisory committee will conduct periodic evaluations of the funding management, coordination, implementation and activities of the Program and report within one year. The Committee will have non-Federal members, including representatives of the research, education, and library communities, network providers, and industry.

H.R. 1068 would amend existing statutory guidelines for interagency research and development (R&D) within the National High-Performance Computing Program. The bill would realign program objectives with the current R&D priorities of individual agencies, repeal authorizations for activities that are technologically outdated, and emphasize more current issues, such as providing researchers sustained access to the most advanced computing systems in the world. In addition, the bill would direct the program's advisory committee to provide the Congress with an evaluation of program funding, management, and effectiveness at least once every two years.

The Program includes eight modules: High End Computing Infrastructure and Applications, High End Computing Research and Development, Large Scale Networking, Software Design and Productivity, Human-Computer Interaction and Information management, High Confidence Software and Systems, Cyber Security and Information Assurance and Social, Economic and Workforce Implications of Information Technology.

The agencies involved in the supercomputer efforts are the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the national Institute of Health, NASA, Department of Commerce and the EPA.

Sponsor:  Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA-3^rd)

Vote: Passed House by voice vote March 12, 2007

Cost to the taxpayers: CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1068 would have no significant net impact on the federal budget. “The total estimated NITRD program budget for all agencies for Fiscal Year 2006 (FY06) is $2,838 billion. The largest research and development programs are at DOD, $1106 million; NSF, $812 million; the DOE Office of Science, $282 million, and NIH, $486 million,” the bill reports.

Earmark Certification:   Not applicable to this bill.

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