The United States needs to shore up its high-end computing and supercomputing efforts, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) has a multiyear plan to help make that happen, says Peter Freeman, an assistant director at the NSF. The plan involves providing services to researchers as well as investing in advanced technologies. The NSF is also paying attention to how cutting-edge technologies can improve human performance.
Specifically, the foundation is focusing on advancing high-end computing in order to boost research in several areas of science and engineering. Some of those fields concern supercomputers, high-bandwidth networks, advanced mass storage, middleware, and advanced applications software. The NSF is also offering services to the science and engineering communities.
"In all of these areas we're trying to invest in both operational activities that use currently available technologies to support research at sites such as the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and we're also investing in research that can further develop advanced technologies," says Freeman.
He acknowledges that there is currently a gap between supercomputing efforts going on in other countries and efforts going on in the United States. "The recent appearance of the Japanese Earth Simulator System (ESS), an NEC-driven supercomputer, is viewed as a technology crisis by some people, which the NSF doesn't really agree with," says Freeman. "But the Japanese have invested a lot of money in such efforts, and the U.S. does not have a sufficient stock of ideas on advanced computing architectures."
One of the key capabilities of the ESS is accurate weather prediction. Freeman predicts that NSF investment in better supercomputing architectures will help even the technology score. "Instead of getting three-day forecasts that are moderately accurate, we should be able to get accurate forecasts of the weather for both longer and much shorter time frames," he says.
Data mining applications will also benefit from NSF-backed supercomputing advances, according to Freeman. "We'll pull together large collections of data stored in different databases, and make unprecedented connections between events. Predicting an event like September 11 and making more accurate medical diagnoses are potentially within reach."
He goes on to describe how the NSF is also increasingly focusing on biotechnology, nanotechnology, and a number of technology arenas that may not have many practical applications in the next five or ten years. "Twenty years from now, we can easily imagine applications in these areas if we invest in the proper lines of research."
Toward that end, the NSF, in conjunction with the Department of Commerce, recently released a report called "Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance". The report calls for U.S. R & D investments in wearable computers, in technologies that could make people more resistant to aging and stress, and in other endeavors. The report also recommends that the U.S. launch a Human Cognome Projectsimilar to the Human Genome Projectthat would chart the structure and functioning of the human mind.