The US House of Representatives gave the collective thumbs-up to two bills aimed at stimulating supercomputing in the United States. The High-Performance Computing Revitalization Act and the Department of Energy High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004 both recognize that additional funding and organization will be necessary in the coming years to keep the US at the top of supercomputing field?a position considered to have important ramifications for the US economy as a whole.
The legislation aims to strengthen U.S. supercomputing capabilities by requiring that the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department ensure U.S. researchers have access to high-performance computers. It would also increase interagency coordination of supercomputing programs. The Energy Department bill would establish an R&D program within DOE to develop more advanced computers. It also would authorize the agency to establish supercomputer user facilities that would be available for use by U.S. researchers on a competitive, peer-reviewed basis.
The push comes after the House found President Bush's High-End Computing Revitalization Task Force "disappointing" in its failure to make the budgetary changes necessary to spur development. The proposed legislation would boost federal contributions by another US$30 million (plus $10 million more by fiscal 2007), and make competitive, peer-reviewed access to supercomputer facilities easier to obtain for the country's scientists. It has taken a while, but Japan's Earth Simulator has lit a fire under the /dev/rear/ of lawmakers and industry analysts alike.
Indeed, the technology sector is turning on the rhetoric in other areas of development, as well. Just last month the Semiconductor Industry Association was calling on companies to push heavily into nanoelectronics to "assure continued U.S. leadership in information technology after current semiconductor technology runs up against insurmountable physical limits."