HPCwire: Presidential Advisors Report On NITRD Program

The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing

HPCwire >> Off the Wire

September 14, 2007

Presidential Advisors Report On NITRD Program

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 -- The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) today delivered its report Leadership Under Challenge: Information Technology R&D in a Competitive World. The report assesses global U.S. competitiveness in networking and information technology and provides recommendations aimed at ensuring that the Federally funded Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD) Program is appropriately focused and implemented.

"This report is a broad, high-level assessment of the entire networking and information technology 'innovation ecosystem.' It makes specific recommendations for Federal R&D that would enhance U.S. competitiveness in this economically critical area," said John H. Marburger, science advisor to the President and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. "PCAST membership includes highly successful leaders of large R&D enterprises, and their advice will be taken seriously by NITRD Program management ."

Dr. Dan Reed, director of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) and PCAST member noted, "PCAST consulted extensively with experts from industry and academia in the course of performing the study. The Council concludes that while the U.S. is still in a leadership position, other nations are challenging that lead in a number of areas. The NITRD Program must focus on visionary research and work with universities to keep the United States at the cutting edge."

PCAST recommends a broad U.S. effort by both the Federal government and the private sector to address the demand for skilled IT professionals , including such steps as updating curricula, increasing fellowships, and simplifying visa processes. With respect to the Federally funded research portfolio, PCAST recommends the Program emphasize larger-scale and longer- term, multidisciplinary IT R&D and innovative, higher-risk projects. The Council also recommends that priority be given to R&D in economically important areas, including IT systems connected with and embedded in the physical world, software, use and management of digital data, and advanced Internet capabilities. PCAST notes that with an annual Federal investment of over $3 billion in the NITRD Program, changes in the Program's interagency process to strengthen assessment and planning are needed.

This report responds to reporting requirements of the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 (Public Law 102-194) and the Next Generation Internet Research Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-305). The laws call for a President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) to assess periodically what is now known as the NITRD Program. Executive Order 13385, signed on September 29, 2005, assigned the PITAC's responsibilities to PCAST.

For a copy of the report, visit: http://ostp.gov/galleries/default-file/NITRD_Report.pdf.

-----

Source: Office of Science and Technology Policy

Article Tools

Share Options

(Digg, Technorati, more)

Subscribe

Subscribe to HPCwire

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Join the Discussion

You must be a registered user in order to comment on HPCwire stories.

Members enjoy:

	Access to Special Content, including Podcasts, Webcasts, and Whitepapers and more!
	Ability to take an active role in the discussions that are shaping the HPC technology discipline!
	Special offers available only to HPCwire members!

Become a Registered User Today!

Registered Users Log in Here to Comment

Email Address:	Password (case sensitive)

Remember me	Forgot Password?

RSS Feeds

Feeds by Topic

Feeds by Industry

Feeds by Content Type

Feature Articles

The Week in Review

C-DAC announces plans for a petaflop system; IBM researchers are working on vertical integration techniques to extend Moore's Law another 15 years. We recap those stories and more in our weekly wrapup.
Read More...

Moscow State University Supercomputer Has Petaflop Aspirations

The Moscow State University supercomputer, Lomonosov, has been selected for a high-performance makeover, with the goal of tripling its processing power to achieve petaflop-level performance in 2010. T-Platforms, who developed and manufactured the supercomputer, is the odds-on favorite to lead the project.
Read More...

Intel Ups Performance Ante with Westmere Server Chips

Right on schedule, Intel has launched its Xeon 5600 processors, codenamed "Westmere EP." The 5600 represents the 32nm sequel to the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem EP) for dual-socket servers. Intel is touting better performance and energy efficiency, along with new security features, as the big selling points of the new Xeons.
Read More...

Read more HPCwire features...

Top Headlines

Australia Commissions Cray Supercomputer

Mar 19 | OfficialWire | New super to support intelligence work Down Under. Read more...

Intel Partners See 'Easy' Upgrade Path With Xeon 5600 Chips

Mar 18 | ChannelWeb | Westmere parts already showing up in HPC machines. Read more...

AMD: OEMs primed for Opteron 6100s

Mar 17 | The Register | But what about the tier ones? Read more...

Arrival of the Desktop Supercomputer

Mar 17 | Cadalyst Magazine | A new generation of workstations is changing the nature of technical computing. Read more...

Scheduling HPC In The Cloud

Mar 17 | Linux Magazine | Latest iteration of Sun Grid Engine able to tap into Cloud. Read more...

Read more headlines...

Featured Whitepapers

Virtualization for Aggregation And The vSMP Architecture™

Jan 12 | | In-depth look at vSMP Foundation server virtualization technology, technical implementation, use cases and capabilities. The technical whitepaper provides an architectural overview and details on the three vSMP Foundation products: vSMP Foundation for SMP, vSMP Foundation for Cluster and vSMP Foundation for Cloud.

Copper Cable Technologies for High Performance Computing

Jan 18 | | This white paper discusses Gore’s copper cable assemblies, and how they continue to exceed the standards for providing reliable, cost-effective solutions for high-performance computer applications.

View the White Paper Library

Multimedia

Webcast: Virtualized Data Center Roundtable

Join this online panel discussion for live Q&A with leading industry experts, analysts, and end-users to discuss the latest innovations, best practices, barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits of server virtualization with a particular focus on today's real world solutions.

Webcast: Watch SC09 Birds of a Feather Video: Scalable Fault-Tolerant HPC Supercomputers

Learn about scalable fault-tolerant architectures and examples of energy efficient and scalable supercomputing clusters using dual QDR InfiniBand to combine capacity computing with network failover capabilities with the help of programming languages such as MPI and a robust Linux cluster management package.

Webcast: High Performance Computing for a Smarter Planet

LIVE@SCO9: The IBM team discusses new innovations in hardware, software and services that help clients better understand their workloads and get insight from their R&D efforts. Technology demonstrations include the soon-to-be-released Power7 HPC processor, the DCS990 system with 2.4 petabytes of storage, the xCAT management tool, secure HPC cloud computing and more. Winners of two HPCwire Readers' and Editors’ Choice Awards! Take the IBM virtual tour at SC09 or more information go online to: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/sc09.html