                    EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
                 OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
                         WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
            HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATIONS
 
                              TESTIMONY
                                 OF
                          D. ALLAN BROMLEY
                               DIRECTOR
               OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
 
                              BEFORE THE
             SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SPACE
          COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
                             U.S. SENATE
 
                            MARCH 5, 1991
 
 
 Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee:
 
 Thank you for giving me the opportunity, as Director of the Office of
 Science and Technology Policy, to discuss with you the critically
 important issue of high performance computing and communications.
 
 On February 4, 1991, the President announced his proposed budget
 for Fiscal year 1992. Among the major new R&D programs in the
 budget is a Presidential initiative on high performance computing
 and communications, which is described in the report Grand
 Challenges:  High Performance Computing and Communications. The
 report, which was released on February 5, 1991, was produced by a
 Working Group on High Performance Computing and Communications
 under the Committee on Physical, Mathematical, and Engineering
 Sciences, which is one of seven umbrella interagency committees
 under the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and
 Technology (FCCSET). A copy of the report is attached.
 
 The overall goals of the high performance computing and
 communications initiative are symbolized by a set of what are called
 "grand challenges," problems of important scientific and social value
 whose solution could he advanced by applying high performance
 computing techniques and resources. These include global climate
 modeling, mapping the human genome, understanding the nature of
 new materials, problems applicable to national security needs, and
 the design of ever more sophisticated computers.  Many such
 problems can be addressed through high performance computing and
 communications, including ones that are impossible to foresee today.
 
 The initiative represents a full integration of component programs in
 a number of Federal agencies in high performance computing and
 computer communications networks.  It integrates and coordinates
 agency programs and builds on those programs where appropriate.
 The initiative proposes to increase funding in these programs by 30
 percent, from the $489 million appropriated in FY 1991 to $638
 millions in FY 1992.
 
                                 History of the Initiative
 
 The high performance computing and communications initiative can
 trace its formative years to the early 1980s, when the scientific
 community and federal agencies recognized the need for advanced
 computing in a wide range of scientific disciplines. As fields of
 science progressed, the quantity of data, the number of databases,
 and need for more sophisticated modeling and analysis all grew. The
 Lax Report of 1982 provided an opportunity to open discussions on
 the need for supercomputer centers beyond those previously at the
 Department of Energy's national laboratories. Subsequently, the
 availability of such resources to the basic research community
 expanded -. for example, through the establishment of the National
 Science Foundation's and NASA's supercomputing centers.
 
 In 1982 a FCCSET committee examined the status of supercomputing
 in the United States and reviewed the role of the federal government
 in the development of this technology.  In 1985 this committee
 recommended government action necessary to retain technological
 supremacy in the development and use of supercomputers in the
 United States.  Subsequent planning resulted in a series of workshops
 conducted in 1987 and in a set of reports that set forth a research
 and development strategy.
 
 A synthesis of the studies, reports, and planning was published by
 OSTP in the report entitled The Federal High Performance Computing
 Program. which was issued on September 8, 1989.  The initiative in
 the FY 1992 budget represents an implementation by the
 participating agencies of the plan embodied in that report,
 appropriately updated to recognize accomplishments made to date.
 The report described a five-year program to be undertaken by four
 agencies -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the
 National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the
 National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  Four additional
 partners have since joined the program -- the National Library of
 Medicine within the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental
 Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Standards and
 Technology and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
 within the Department of Commerce - and they have added
 considerable strength to the overall program.
 
 The planning and implementation of the HPCC program have been
 the result of extraordinarily effective collaboration by the
 participating agencies using the FCCSET forum.  It was developed
 alter several years of discussions among the agencies and hundreds
 of hours of negotiating and interactions between all federal
 government agencies with an interest in computing. Agencies have
 realigned and enhanced their HPCC programs, coordinated their
 activities with other agencies, and shared common resources.  The
 final product represents a complex balance of relationships and
 agreements forged among the agencies over a number of years.
 
 These agencies have achieved a level of mutual trust, cooperation,
 and synergism that is remarkable in or out of government -- and not
 easily achieved.  In addition, the success of this effort demonstrates
 the advantages to be gained by using the FCCSET process to
 coordinate areas of science and technology that cut across the
 missions of several federal agencies.  The FCCSET interagency process
 maintains the necessary flexibility and balance of a truly integrated
 program as the science and technology evolve, and it allows
 additional agencies to identity opportunities and participate in a
 given program.
 
                                 Description of the Initiative
 
 The HPCC initiative is a program for research and development in all
 leading-edge areas of computing.  The program has four major
 components:  (1) High Performance Computing Systems, (2)
 Advanced Software Technology and Algorithms, (3) a National
 Research and Education Network (NREN), and (4) Basic Research and
 Human Resources. The program seeks a proper balance among the
 generic goals of technology development, technology dissemination
 and application, and improvements in U.S. productivity and
 industrial competitiveness.  It incorporates general purpose
 advanced computing as well as the challenges ahead in massively
 parallel computing.
 
 In the development of computing hardware, ambitious goals have
 been set.  The program seeks a thousandfold improvement in useful
 computing capability (to a trillion operations per second).  The focus
 will be on the generic technologies that will prove valuable in many
 different sectors. Where appropriate, projects will be performed on a
 cost-shared basis with industry.
 
 In software development, the program will focus on the advanced
 software and algorithms that in many applications have become the
 determining factor for exploiting high performance computing and
 communications.  In particular, software must become much more
 user-friendly if we are to provide a much larger fraction of the
 population with access to high performance computing.
 
 The National Research and Education Network (NREN) would
 dramatically expand and enhance the capabilities of the existing
 interconnected computer networks called the Internet. The overall
 goal is to achieve a hundredfold increase in communications speed
 (to levels of gigabits per second). In addition, the number of "on-
 ramps" and "off-ramps" to the network would he greatly expanded,
 bringing the potential of high performance computing to homes,
 offices, classrooms, and factories.  Such a network could have the
 kind of catalytic effect on our society, companies, and universities
 that the telephone system has had during the twentieth century. A
 new meaning will be given to communication, involving not just the
 transfer of knowledge but a full sharing of resources and capabilities
 that no single site possesses.
 
 Finally, the HPCC initiative will add significantly to the nation's
 science and technology infrastructure through its impacts on
 education and basic research.  It is my personal view that the
 successful implementation of this program will lay the foundation for
 changes in education at all levels, including the precollege level.
 
 Of course, no plan is better than its execution, and the execution of
 the HPCC initiative will rely heavily on the synergy that has been
 carefully cultivated among the participating agencies. This synergy
 has been fostered by allowing each agency to do what it does best in
 the way that it does best. Each of the four founding agencies has
 national constituencies and historical strengths.  DARPA, for example,
 will lead in fostering the development of breakthrough system
 technologies, as it has done in the past for time-sharing, network
 operating systems, and RISC architecture. DOE, through its historical
 ties with the national laboratories, has always led in the
 development and use of HPCC technologies and is applying them on
 the cutting-edge of scientific problems. NASA will continue to pursue
 a new wave of space-related and aeronautics problems, such as
 computational aerodynamics, as well as its strength in the collection,
 modeling, simulating, and archiving of space-based environmental
 data. And NSF's close ties with the academic community gives it a
 special expertise in both education and in the coordination and use of
 NREN.
 
                      Expected Returns of the Initiative
 
 The high performance computing and communications initiative
 represents a major strategic investment for the nation with both
 economic and social returns.  I personally believe that few
 technology initiatives have the potential to have a greater impact on
 the ways we live and work than does the high performance
 computing and communications initiative.
 
 The high-performance end of the computer market is relatively
 small, but its influence far transcends its size. The high end is where
 leading-edge technologies and applications are developed. Recent
 history indicates that these developments diffuse so quickly
 throughout the overall market that "superminis" and
 "superworkstations" are no longer contradictions in terms. A federal
 investment in the leading-edge computing technology will speed the
 growth of the overall computer market and may catalyze
 investments on the part of U.S. industry. At the same time,
 supercomputers are not the only important hardware component; we
 shall not forget the importance of the smaller, more widely
 distributed units and their role in the overall system.
 
 In addition, the HPCC initiative will he a major contributor to meeting
 national needs.  National security, health, transportation, education,
 energy, and environment concerns are all areas that have grown to
 depend on high performance computing and communications in
 essential ways. The dependence will grow as computers become
 more powerful, cheaper, more reliable, and more usable.
 
 HPCC is also critical for the nation's scientific infrastructure.  The
 electronic computer was born as a scientific tool, and its early
 development was driven by scientific needs.  Business applications
 soon came to dominate its development, but recently there has been
 a renewed focus on computers as an instrument in science. Indeed,
 "computational science," which incorporates modeling, simulation and
 data rendition, is adding a third dimension to experimentation and
 theory as modes of scientific investigation.  In field after field of
 fundamental and applied sciences, problems intractable for either
 theory or experimentation are being successfully attacked with the
 aid of high speed computation.
 
                    Diffusion of the Initiative's Benefits
 
 If the HPCC initiative is to realize its full potential, it is not enough
 that it reach its technology goals.  It is equally important that the
 technologies be deployed by the private sector in a timely way to
 result in an acceleration of market growth.  It is likewise insufficient
 for applications to be developed and problems to be solved; in
 addition, the benefits accruing from those solutions must be
 disseminated so as to influence our everyday lives.
 
 The continued development and use of government-funded high
 performance computing and communications prototypes can have a
 significant positive impact on the potential commercialization of
 these technologies.  In addition, many organizations that cannot
 individually justify the hardware investments will be able to gain
 access to these new computing systems via the new network Thus,
 the knowledge gained through the timely development and use of
 prototype systems and the access provided to them by the network
 will significantly improve the dissemination of the benefits of the
 initiative.
 
 However, this wide diffusion is not possible by federal action alone.
 The Administration's HPCC initiative will serve the nation best as a
 catalyst for private actions.  Some analysts have suggested that the
 HPCC initiative can spur several hundred billion dollars of GNP
 growth.  If so, it will be because American companies, both large and
 small, are able to deploy the technologies in producing quality goods
 and services.
 
 Similarly, some predict that NREN will lead to the establishment of a
 truly national high speed network that connects essentially every
 home and every office.  If that happens, it will be because private
 investments are stimulated by government leadership.  Far from
 suppressing or displacing the focus of a free market, the HPCC
 initiative will strengthen them by providing the impetus for vigorous
 private action.
 
 Congressional Initiatives in High Performance Computing and
 Communications
 
 The breadth and balance of the high performance computing and
 communications initiative are critical to its success.  The four
 components of the program are carefully balanced, and maintaining
 this balance is the most important priority in the program.  For
 example, powerful computers without adequate software,
 networking, and capable people would not result in successful
 applications. A program that created only high performance
 networks would not satisfy the need for greater computing
 performance to take advantage of the networks and solve important
 problems.
 
 Similarly, the Administration's initiative relies on substantial
 participation by industry and government laboratories to overcome
 barriers to technology transfer.  Cooperative government, industry,
 and university activities will yield the maximum benefits derived
 from moving new technologies from basic discoveries to the
 marketplace.
 
 The legislative proposals pending before the Congress, though well
 intended, do not fully recognize the comprehensive interagency
 effort brought about through years of collaboration.  For example, S.
 272 only specifies the program for two of the four major agencies
 included in the high performance computing and communications
 initiative.  In addition, S. 272 incorrectly specifies the roles of the
 agencies; many of the requirements of the legislation have, in fact,
 already been accomplished; and the agencies have moved on to
 further scientific and technical challenges.  The legislation, in effect,
 may detract from the existing programs by limiting the activities of
 the agencies and by causing an unintended revision of complex
 relationships forged between the agencies.  For these reasons, I
 strongly believe that FCCSET activities should not be codified in law.
 
 I am concerned that legislative action not limit the flexibility of what
 is by nature an extremely dynamic process. When research plans are
 developed to implement interagency programs, those plans are
 inevitably dynamic, just as the research efforts they describe are
 dynamic and evolving.  If research plans are codified in law, it
 suggests that the research is static. This is particularly a concern with
 high performance computing and communications, where the pace of
 technological change is dramatic. As an example of a fast-moving
 research opportunity, I might mention a joint Los Alamos National
 Laboratory/DARPA effort that successfully applied an innovative
 massively parallel Connection Machine Computer system to a nuclear
 weapons safety code to gain new and valuable insights into the
 safety of the nuclear weapons inventory. Another example occurred
 in the last year at the National Library of Medicine's National Center
 for Biotechnology Information, where researchers developed a new
 fast algorithm for sequence similarity searches of protein and nucleic
 acid databases. This was very helpful in the identification of a gene
 causing von Rocklinghausen's neurofibromatosis.  This is a major
 breakthrough in the understanding of this bewildering disorder that
 affects about 1 in 3,000 people. On the networking front, significant
 achievements have also been made. For example, the NSFNET has
 increased in speed a thousandfold (from 56 kilobits per second to 45
 megabits per second) since 1988.
 
 S. 272 has as its focal point the issuing of a plan that would delineate
 agency roles and include specific tasks. However, the
 Administration's initiative and the accompanying FCCSET report
 satisfy these demands for items to be incorporated in the planning
 phase.  S. 272 further calls for the establishment of an advisory
 panel to provide additional input into the plan. But many of the
 agencies already have current advisory panels, and private sector
 participation is fully anticipated in the Administration's initiative as
 agency programs move forward to implementation. Moreover, the
 oversight role of the Congress, including the hearings scheduled this
 week in the House and Senate, serve as important elements in the
 fine tuning of the program.
 
 The National Research and Education Network described in the
 initiative addresses the need for greatly enhanced computer
 communications highlighted in the legislation. The initiative also
 seeks to be comprehensive in addressing the roles of the various R&D
 agencies -- for example, by allowing other agencies to join the effort
 as appropriate.
 
 It bears emphasis that the Administration's initiative uses the
 existing statutory, programmatic, budgetary, and authorizing
 authorities of the agencies and departments involved in the
 initiative, including OSTP. The funding levels necessary to proceed
 with this effort have been transmitted to the Congress in the
 President's request and are clearly reflected in the budgets of each of
 the eight agencies involved in the initiative. The Congress already
 has the ability to positively affect the high performance computing
 program of the federal government through existing authorizations
 and appropriations.
 
 FCCSET is a very important mechanism within the Executive Branch
 for reviewing and coordinating research and development activities
 that cut across the missions of more than one federal agency. Unlike
 the committees in the Legislative Branch, each of which has discrete
 authority for oversight, interagency committees within FCCSET are
 forums for discussion, analysis, collaboration, and consensus building.
 The member agencies then have the responsibility for implementing
 the program and proceeding with the necessary contracting,
 budgeting, and so on developed through the interagency process.
 
 Several legislative vehicles, in addition to S. 272, have been
 introduced that seek to endorse and advance the Administration's
 initiative.  I welcome the Congress's interest and intentions in high
 performance computing and communications.  I am confident that by
 working together we can have a significant impact on the nation's
 future through these efforts, and I welcome suggestions from
 Congress to improve the current initiative.
 
 I might suggest that hearings to receive the views of all the various
 communities involved with this proposal and a positive endorsement
 of this program by Congress would be of great assistance in
 advancing high performance computing and communications in this
 country. Positive action on the requested appropriations will ensure
 that this extensive interagency program can go forward.
 
 Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, let me conclude by
 saying that I look forward to working cooperatively with you on this
 initiative. We share the same goals, and I am confident that we can
 reach a consensus on how best to achieve them.
