The House Science and Technology Committee plans to meet tomorrow to mark up 4 bills, including the High Performance Computing R&D Act (H.R. 1068). The HPC R&D Act is very similar to previous efforts to amend the original High Performance Computing and Communications Act of 1991, the act that established what has become the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program.
This version differs from the most recent attempt (H.R. 28, introduced in the 109th Congress) in that it doesn't attempt to authorize specific agency activities. But otherwise, it contains the two provisions we particularly liked about the previous version. First, it directs the Director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop and maintain a research, development, and deployment roadmap for the provision of federal high-performance computing systems. Second, there's an explicit requirement that the President's advisory committee for IT (now a responsibility of the PCAST) review not only the goals of the NITRD program but the funding levels as well and report the results of that review to Congress every two years.
In previous Congresses, the various HPC acts have failed to become law for a variety of reasons. It seems the situation this year is slightly more hopeful -- but we should have some better sense in a week or so, so stay tuned.
The markup will be webcast here beginning at 10 am ET. Should get quick approval by the committee.
If you're interested in seeing what the bill would actually do to the HPCC, here's an "as amended by" document. Red text is what's added. Strikethrough is what's taken away...
Update: (March 12, 2007) -- The House passed the measure by voice vote. Details here.
Frances E. Allen, a former CRA Board member, has received the 2006 A.M. Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the first time a woman has been given this honor. Allen, an IBM Fellow at the TJ Watson Research Center, was chosen “for contributions that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance computing.” Allen was also the first woman to be named an IBM Fellow in 1989. The Turing Award was first presented in 1966 and was named for British mathematician Alan M. Turing, is widely considered the "Nobel Prize in Computing." It carries a $100,000 prize, with financial support provided by Intel Corporation.
From the ACM press release:
Allen…made fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of program optimization, which translates the users' problem-solving language statements into more efficient sequences of computer instructions. Her contributions also greatly extended earlier work in automatic program parallelization, which enables programs to use multiple processors simultaneously in order to obtain faster results. These techniques have made it possible to achieve high performance from computers while programming them in languages suitable to applications. They have contributed to advances in the use of high performance computers for solving problems such as weather forecasting, DNA matching, and national security functions."Fran Allen's work has led to remarkable advances in compiler design and machine architecture that are at the foundation of modern high-performance computing," said Ruzena Bajcsy, Chair of ACM's Turing Award Committee, and professor of Electrical and Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. "Her contributions have spanned most of the history of computer science, and have made possible computing techniques that we rely on today in business and technology. It is interesting to note Allen's role in highly secret intelligence work on security codes for the organization now known as the National Security Agency, since it was Alan Turing, the namesake of this prestigious award, who devised techniques to help break the German codes during World War II," said Bajcsy, who is Emeritus Director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at Berkeley.
The House Committee on Science and Technology held its first budget hearing of the year today with testimony from Dr. John Marburger, director of the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. The focus of the chairman and several of the committee members, including perennial science champion Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), was on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and the decreases to NSF’s Education and Human Resources Directorate in recent years, along with some concern regarding NASA’s space exploration and aeronautics funding. The opening statements as well as a web cast of the hearing are available online.
The Committee and Dr. Marburger for the Administration seemed to be in agreement that the increased funding for NSF, NIST, and DoE Office of Science were important and that the American Competitiveness Initiative is important for America’s future innovation and competitiveness. However, the Administration and the Chairman seemed to diverge when it comes to priorities. The Administration priority is research funding and Chairman Gordon said that the education recommendations of the Gathering Storm report should be an equal priority. The Chairman repeatedly came back to the fact that, while the FY08 budget request increases funding to NSF’s EHR Directorate, that same Directorate’s funding has decreased by 50 percent in the last four years. He was also unimpressed with the Department of Education FY08 budget request in that he felt the STEM education funding should be at NSF.
You can see the entire hearing on the Committee’s web site.
The New York Times has a nicely-written obituary for computing pioneer Ken Kennedy, penned by John Markoff. Here's a snippet:
A member of the generation of researchers who were the first to have access to modern supercomputers, Mr. Kennedy spearheaded early work on software programs known as parallelizing compilers, systems that can automatically spread workloads among a large number of processors, vastly speeding calculations.Kennedy also played an important role on the first incarnation of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), which put together the 1999 Information Technology Research: Investing in our Future report. The strong, well-supported recommendations in that report helped pave the way for a dramatic expansion of the federal government's support for computer science research. Kennedy was also a co-PI on CRA's Computing Community Consortium proposal, which was ultimately successful.Early computers were based on a single processor that would perform the steps of a software program sequentially. But in the 1970s and 1980s researchers began to look for ways to increase computing speed by harnessing tens, hundreds and even thousands of processors, in much the fashion that adding lanes to a freeway will allow more traffic to flow.
The challenge that such systems presented was the need to create programming tools that would hide the interdependencies and complexity from the scientists and engineers who wanted to use the machines as problem-solving tools.
"These compilers made it possible for mere mortals to write advanced programs," said Edward Lazowska, the Bill and Melinda Gates professor of computer science at the University of Washington in Seattle. "Ken was the No. 1 person in parallel compiling." (Parallel compilers are software programs that translate programmers’ language-oriented instructions into numeric codes that control computer operation.)
The software technology he developed has served as the foundation for successive generations of scientists and engineers who developed advanced simulations, including weather and climate prediction and the model of automobile collisions. Moreover, the fruits of his technology are now rapidly reaching broad consumer audiences both through the latest generations of personal computers and through videogame players, which now come equipped with parallel processors.
I was privileged to have a few interactions with Kennedy over the six years or so I've been at CRA and was always impressed with his grasp of policy and his willingness to do more than was necessary in service of the field.
Update: Chuck Koelbel from Rice passed along these additional details:
A memorial service for Dr. Kennedy will take place at First Presbyterian Church, 5300 Main Street, Houston, on Thursday, February 15 at 3pm. In lieu of flowers, the family suggest gifts be made to Rice University, Ken Kennedy Memorial Fund. Checks may be mailed to Rice University MS-81, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX, 77251-1892. To contribute online, visit giving.rice.edu, click "Make a Gift Online", choose "Designation-Other, and type "Ken Kennedy Memorial Fund" in the Special Instruction box.
First, the macro level view of the agency:
(in millions of dollars) |
||||||
Actual |
Budget Request |
Request |
FY07 Request |
FY07 Request (%) |
||
| Research and Related Activities | $4,449.25 | $4,765.95 | $5,131.69 | $365.74 | 7.7% | |
| Education and Human Resources | $700.26 | $716.22 | $750.60 | $34.48 | 4.8% | |
| MREFC | $233.81 | $240.45 | $244.74 | $4.29 | 1.8% | |
| Agency Operations and Award Management | $247.06 | $281.82 | $285.59 | $3.77 | 1.3% | |
| National Science Board | $3.94 | $3.91 | $4.03 | $0.12 | 3.1% | |
| Office of the Inspector General | $11.47 | $11.86 | $12.35 | $0.49 | 4.1% | |
| Total NSF | $5,645.79 | $6,020.21 | $6,429.00 | $408.79 | 6.8% | |
As you can see, the great bulk of the Administration's planned increase is aimed at the Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, home of NSF's research directorates. The agency's education efforts -- in the Education and Human Resources directorate -- would also see an increase, though not nearly as robust as R&RA. Of particular interest to those of us in the computing community, NSF is using some of the increase provided by ACI on a new NSF-wide initiative called "Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation" (CDI) that aims to "broaden the Nation's capability for innovation by developing a new generation of computationally based discovery concepts and tools to deal with complex, data-rich and interacting systems." The $52 million initiative will be led by NSF's CISE directorate (who will control $20 million of the funding), with participation from Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Science, Social, Behavioral and Economic science, Cyberinfrastructure, International Science, and EHR. The agency appears to have big plans for the initative, projecting out-year funding growing to $250 million in FY 2012 (with CISE hopefully maintaining a proportional share).
Drilling down a little further, here's the Directorate by Directorate breakdown within R&RA:
Directorate Budgets (in millions of dollars) |
||||||
Actual |
Budget Request |
Request |
FY07 Request |
FY07 Request (%) |
||
| Biological Sciences | $580.90 | $607.85 | $633.00 | $25.15 | 4.1% | |
| Computer and Information Science and Engineering | $496.35 | $526.69 | $574.00 | $47.31 | 9.0% | |
| Engineering | $585.46 | $628.55 | $683.30 | $54.75 | 8.7% | |
| Geosciences | $703.95 | $744.85 | $792.00 | $47.15 | 6.3% | |
| Mathematical and Physical Sciences | $1,086.61 | $1,150.30 | $1,253.00 | $102.70 | 8.9% | |
| Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences | $201.23 | $213.76 | $222.00 | $8.24 | 3.9% | |
| Office of Cyberinfrastructure | $127.14 | $182.42 | $200.00 | $17.58 | 9.6% | |
| Office of International Science and Engineering | $42.61 | $40.61 | $45.00 | $4.39 | 10.8% | |
| Office of Polar Programs | $390.54 | $438.10 | $464.90 | $26.80 | 6.1% | |
| Integrative Activities |
$233.30 | $231.37 | $263.00 | $31.63 | 13.7% | |
| U.S. Arctic Research Commission | $1.17 | $1.45 | $1.49 | $0.04 | 2.8% | |
| Total, Research and Related Activities | $4,449.25 | $4,765.95 | $5,131.69 | $365.74 | 7.7% | |
The increases weren't evenly distributed throughout the directorates. Of the research directorates, CISE would see the largest percentage increase. In fact, the 9 percent requested growth rate is the largest for the directorate in seven years. Here's how CISE plans to spend the funding:
(in millions of dollars) |
||||||
Actual |
Budget Request |
Request |
FY07 Request |
FY07 Request (%) |
||
| Computing and Communication Foundation | $105.30 | $122.82 | $149.15 | $26.33 | 21.4% | |
| Computer and Network Systems | $141.07 | $162.98 | $191.98 | $29.00 | 17.8% | |
| Information and Intelligent Systems | $103.78 | $119.30 | $154.63 | $35.33 | 29.6% | |
| Information Technology Research | $146.20 | $121.59 | $78.24 | -$43.35 | -35.7% | |
| Total, CISE | $496.35 | $526.69 | $574.00 | $47.31 | 9.0% | |
Deborah Crawford, the acting AD for CISE, highlighted a number of new programs the new funding -- and funding freed up as the ITR program comes to an end -- would allow the directorate to pursue. First is an emphasis on "Discovery Research for Innovation," which includes these new efforts:
The budget also includes statistics on the number of awards and the funding rate estimates for the directorate in FY 06, 07 and 08. The directorate estimates it will fund fewer research grants in FY 07 than it did in FY 06 (950 in FY07 vs 1,003 in FY06), with a corresponding drop in funding rate (18 percent in FY07 vs 22 percent in FY06). For FY08, the directorate expects the number of research grants to grow to 1,000 and the funding rate to rise a bit to 20 percent.
Despite those figures, this is, overall, a very promising start for computing at NSF in FY 2008 -- which, given NSF's role in funding 87 percent of academic basic research in computing, makes it a good start for the field.
As stated in a previous post about the FY08 Budget Request, Department of Energy’s Office of Science did well with a $296 million, or 7 percent, increase over the FY07 request. The Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) request is $340.2 million, an increase of $21.5 million or 6.8 percent.
The ASCR has three overarching programs: Research in applied mathematics and computer science with a request of $82.8 million up from $69.6 million in the FY07 request; Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) with a request of $56.3 million up from $56.1 million in the FY07 request; and High-performance computing and network facilities and testbeds with a request of $201.1 million up from $193 million in the FY07 request.
Overall these are good numbers for computing, and science, and certainly help to make up for some of the recent lean years. As always, we’ll keep you posted as we learn more and as the budget process goes forward on Capitol Hill.
President Bush released his FY 2008 budget request today and it appears that, as promised, the Administration remains committed to the American Competitiveness Initiative and the doubling trajectory for three key science agencies begun in last year's budget request. We've only just started digging into the budget documents -- and we'll be getting more in-depth agency briefings later this afternoon -- but here are some of the top-level numbers: [Just a note, comparing some of these numbers to FY 2007 is a bit problematic because the final FY 2007 estimates aren't in yet. So in all cases but Defense and Homeland Security, the comparison is to the President's requested funding level for FY 2007, which, in most cases, is probably actually higher than the final FY 2007 level set by the CR is likely to be. Therefore, the increases shown for these agencies' requests may actually be greater compared to the final FY 2007 numbers.]
National Science Foundation: Overall funding would rise to $6.429 billion in FY 2008, an increase of $409 million or 7 percent greater than the President's FY 2007 budget request. NSF's research accounts would grow $648 million over the FY 2007 request to $4.880 billion, an increase of 15 percent.
National Institute of Standards and Technology: (Intramural Research and Facilities) NIST's core research and facilities accounts would grow to $586 million in FY 2008, an increase of $55 million or 10 percent over the President's FY 2007 request.
Department of Energy, Office of Science: Increase to $4.398 billion, or $296 million or 7 percent greater than the President's FY 2007 request.
Defense: Defense is trickier to figure out because it and Homeland Security are the only two agencies with enacted levels for FY 2007. In the President's FY 2008 request, Defense basic and applied research would decline $1.110 billion vs. the FY 2007 enacted level to $5.785 billion, a 16 percent reduction. For Basic research (6.1), the Administration requests $1.428 billion, a reduction of $137 million from the FY 07 enacted level (9 percent) and just $7 million more than the President requested in FY 07. Applied research would fall to $4.357 billion under the President's plan, $973 million (18 percent) lower than FY 07 enacted, and $121 million less than he requested in FY 07.
National Institutes of Health: The Administration plan would set NIH's budget at $28.700 billion in FY 2008, $432 million more than the President's FY 2007 request, but about $188 million short of the amount likely to be enacted in the FY 2007 CR.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: NOAA would see its research budget rise to $358 million in FY 2008 under the President's plan, an increase of $20 million or 6 percent compared to his FY 2007 request. We have to do a bit more digging to see how this will compare with the CR level.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration: NASA's Science account would grow to $5.516 billion in FY 2008, $186 million or 3 percent greater than the President's FY 2007 request.
Networking and Information Technology R&D Program: This is the cross-agency budget line for the NITRD program, one of just three interagency R&D efforts listed in the budget (the other two are the National Nanotechnology Initiative and the Climate Change Science Program). I'm hesitant to just put up the raw numbers here, because they always require some interpretation (see last year, for example), but the bottom line number is that the NITRD program would stay essentially flat at $3.057 billion in FY 2008, a $12 million increase over the President's FY 2007 request (and the FY 2007 Defense enacted number). Slated for increases would be NSF's NITRD activities, which would grow $90 million to $994 million, a 10 percent increase, and the Department of Energy and NASA, which would both increase by 4 percent. Defense IT R&D would suffer a 2 percent cut vs. the FY 2007 enacted level, and NIH would see a 14 percent decrease vs. the President's FY 07 request. But it's going to take a bit more investigating to figure out where NITRD really stands vs. FY 2007.
Just for comparison's sake, the NNI would grow by 4 percent in FY 08 (to $1.447 billion) and the Climate Change Science Program would decline 7 percent to $1.544 billion.
We expect to have a lot more detail after the agency briefings this afternoon. We'll post whatever we learn as soon as we can.
By the way, all the budget documents are perusable here.