Task Force Calls for Unified Supercomputing Efforts
released 05.21.04
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WASHINGTON, DC —
A White House task force has agreed that supercomputer institutes must work together closely in order to propel the country's high-performance computing efforts. By sharing resources and opening lines of communication, computational power will exceed current limitations.
The White House's High-End Computing Task Force released a report (Federal Plan for High-End Computing) after a House Science Committee hearing on the High Performance Computing Revitalization Act. The report calls for a unified effort to share resources among and within supercomputing centers and asks for an outline detailing the future development of high-end machines.
The High Performance Revitalization Act, introduced last month by Rep. Biggert (R-Ill.), would create an advisory committee to help formulate this outline for future supercomputing development.
Experts believe that the U.S. is slipping in supercomputing competition efforts and that commercial server clustering has dried up the market and increased costs for high-performance computers. Many institutes cannot work with clusters alone, potentially making such a market shrinkage very detrimental.
Dan Reed, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, argued before the committee that current high-performance computers were not as effective as necessary. A united front of government resources, combined with increased availability to others, would help to fix such problems. As of now, many large supercomputers are unavailable to other researchers. The National Science Foundation's TeraGrid project, for instance, is restricted from researchers outside of NSF's facilities. It was suggested that large supercomputers be considered "national resources" and made more openly available.
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