Computing Research Policy Blog

FY 09 Budget Close-up: DOE Office of Science

It looks like a decent year for Advanced Scientific Computing Research at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Following the FY08 omnibus, in which ASCR received an almost 25 percent increase, the President has requested another 5 percent increase for FY09, for a total of $368.8 million. Here is a brief breakdown:

• Applied mathematics and computer science research $93.2 million
• Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) $58.1 million
• High-performance computing and network facilities and testbeds $217.5 million

The high-performance computing number includes:

• $54.8 million for the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
  
• $85 million for Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility
  
• $30 million for Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
  
• $25 million for an Energy Sciences Network (ESNet)

US high-performance computing is expected to reach a petaflop this year at Oak Ridge and Raymond Orbach, the director of the Office of Science, stated at the budget briefing presentation that the US will increase computing power by a factor of ten every two years moving forward.

Overall, the Office of Science did well in the request with $4.7 billion, an 18.8 percent increase. This keeps the Office of Science close to the ACI trajectory announced by the President in 2006. Funding levels include:

• $805 million for high energy physics
• $510 million for nuclear physics
• $568.5 million for biological and environmental research
• $1.57 billion for basic energy science
• $493 million for fusion energy sciences
• $110 million for science laboratories infrastructure

In FY08, there were $123.6 million in earmarks in a total appropriation of $4.02 billion, which the President has zeroed out in the FY09 budget request.