Statement of the American Library Association to the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for the hearing record of March 5, 1991 on S. 272 The High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 The National Research and Education Network, which S. 272 would create, could revolutionize the conduct of research, education, and information transfer. As part of the infrastructure supporting education and research, libraries are already stakeholders in the evolution to a networked society. For this reason, the American Library Association, a nonprofit educational organization of more than 51,000 librarians, educators, information scientists, and library trustees and friends of libraries, endorsed in January 1990 and again in January 1991 the concept of a National Research and Education Network. ALA's latest resolution, a copy of which is attached, identified elements which should be incorporated in legislation to create the NREN, a high-capacity electronic highway of interconnected networks linking business, industry, government, and the education and library communities. ALA also joined with 19 other education, library, and computing organizations and associations in a Partnership for the National Research and Education Network. On January 25, 1991, the Partnership organizations recommended a policy framework for the NREN which also identified elements to be incorporated in NREN legislation. Within that framework, ALA recommends the following additions to the pending NREN legislation to facilitate the provision of the information resources users will expect on the network, to provide appropriate and widely dispersed points of user access, and to leverage the federal investment. NREN authorizing legislation should provide for: A. Recognition of education in its broadest sense as a reason for development of the NREN; B. Eligibility of all types of libraries to link to the NREN as resource providers and as access points for users; and C. A voice for involved constituencies, including libraries, in development of network policy and technical standards. NREN legislation should authorize support for: A. High-capacity network connections with all 50 states; B. A percentage of network development funds allocated for education and training; and C. Direct connections to the NREN for at least 200 key libraries and library organizations and dial-up access for multitype libraries within each state to those key libraries. Prime candidates (some of which are already connected to the Internet) for direct connection to the NREN include: - The three national libraries (Library of Congress, National Agricultural Library, National Library of Medicine) and other federal agency libraries and information centers; - Fifty-one regional depository libraries (generally one per state) which have a responsibility to provide free public access to all publications (including in electronic formats) of U.S. government agencies; - Fifty-one state library agencies (or their designated resource libraries or library networks) which have responsibility for statewide library development and which administer federal funds; - Libraries in geographic areas which have a scarcity of NREN connections; - Libraries with specialized or unique resources of national or international significance; and - Library networks and bibliographic utilities which act on behalf of libraries. The National Science Foundation, through its various programs, including science education, should provide for: A. The inclusion of libraries both within and outside of higher education and elementary and secondary education as part of the research and education support structure; B. Education and training in network use at all levels of education; and C. Experimentation and demonstrations in network applications. ALA enthusiastically supports development of an NREN with strong library involvement for several reasons. 1. The NREN has the potential to revolutionize the conduct of research, education, and information transfer. As basic literacy becomes more of a problem in the United States, the skills needed to be truly literate grow more sophisticated. ALA calls this higher set of skills "information literacy"-knowing how to learn, knowing how to find and use information, knowing how knowledge is organized. Libraries play a role in developing these skills, beginning with encouraging preschool children to read. Libraries as community institutions and as part of educational institutions introduce users to technology. Many preschoolers and their grandparents have used a personal computer for the first time at a public library. Libraries are using technology, not only to organize their in-house collections, but to share knowledge of those collections with users of other libraries, and to provide users with access to other library resources, distant databases, and actual documents. Libraries have begun a historic shift from providing access primarily to the books on the shelves to providing access to the needed information wherever it may be located. The NREN is the vehicle librarians need to accelerate this trend. In Michigan, a pilot program called M-Link has made librarians at a group of community libraries full, mainstream information providers. Since 1988, M-Link has enabled libraries in Alpena, Bay County, Hancock, Battle Creek, Farmington, Grand Rapids, and Lapeer to have access to the extensive resources of the University of Michigan Library via the state's MERIT network. The varied requests of dentists, bankers, city managers, small business people, community arts organizations, and a range of other users are transmitted to the University's librarians via telephone, fax, or computer and modem. Information can be faxed quickly to the local libraries from the University. Access to a fully developed NREN would increase by several magnitudes both the amount and types of information available and the efficiency of such library interconnections. Eventually, the NREN could stimulate the type of network that would be available to all these people directly. School libraries also need electronic access to distant resources for students and teachers. In information-age schools linked to a fully developed NREN, teachers would work consistently with librarians, media resource people, and instructional designers to provide interactive student learning projects. Use of multiple sources of information helps students develop the critical thinking skills needed by employers and needed to function in a democratic society. This vision of an information-age school builds on today's groundwork. For instance, the New York State Library is providing dial-up access for school systems to link the resources of the state library (a major research resource) and more than 50 public, reference, and research library systems across the state. The schools had a demonstrated need for improved access for research and other difficult-to-locate materials for students, faculty, and administrators. 2. Current Internet users want library-like services, and libraries have responded with everything from online catalogs to electronic journals. As universities and colleges became connected to the Internet, the campus library's online catalog was one of the first information resources faculty and students demanded to have available over the same network. Some 200 library online catalogs are already accessible through the Internet. Academic library users increasingly need full text databases and multimedia and personalized information resources in an environment in which the meter is not ticking by the minute logged, the citation downloaded, or the statistic retrieved. A telecommunications vehicle such as the NREN can help equalize the availability of research resources for scholars in all types, sizes, and locations of higher education institutions. Libraries will be looked to for many of the information resources expected to be made available over the network, and librarians have much to contribute to the daunting task of organizing the increasing volumes of electronic information. The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, a consortium of multitype libraries, not only lists what books are available in member libraries, but its CARL/Uncover database includes tables of contents from thousands of journals in these libraries. Libraries are also pioneering in the development of electronic journals. Of the ten scholarly refereed electronic journals now in operation or in the planning stages, several are sponsored by university libraries or library organizations. 3. Libraries provide access points for users without an Institutional base. Many industrial and independent researchers do not have an institutional connection to the Internet. All such researchers and scholars are legitimate users of at least one public library. The NREN legislation as introduced does not reflect current use of the networks, much less the full potential for support of research and education. Because access to Internet resources is necessary to this goal, many libraries outside academe without access to academic networks have developed creative, if sometimes awkward, ways to fill the gap. A number of high schools have guest accounts at universities, but only a few have managed to get direct connections. CARL, the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, reaches library users regardless of the type of library they are using or their point of access. The development of community computer systems such as the Cleveland Free-net is another example of providing network access to a larger community of library users. Several Cleveland area public, academic, and special libraries are information providers on the Free-net as well. Most of the companies in California high-technology centers either began as or still have fewer than 50 employees. For these companies, there is no major research facility or corporate library. The local public libraries provide strong support as research resources for such companies. The California State Library has encouraged and supported such development, for example, through grants to projects like the Silicon Valley Information Center in the San Jose Public Library. Library access to the NREN would improve libraries' ability to serve the needs of small business. Support of research and education needs in rural areas could also be aided through library access to the NREN. Even without such access, libraries are moving to provide information electronically throughout their states, often through state networks. An example is the North Carolina Information Network. NCIN, through an agreement between the State Library and the University of North Carolina's Educational Computing Service, provides information access to almost 400 libraries in every part of the state-from university and corporate libraries in the Research Triangle Park, to rural mountain and coastal public libraries, to military base libraries. Using federal Library Services and Construction Act funds, the State Library provides the local equipment needed at the packet nodes to permit access to the system (called LINCNET) to these local libraries. The information needs of rural people and communities are just as sophisticated and important as the needs of the people in urban areas. Because the North Carolina network is available in rural libraries, small businesses in these communities have access for the first time to a state database of all contracts for goods, services, and construction being put out for bid by the state-just one example of network contribution to economic development. The key to the network's growing success is the installation of basic computer and telecommunications hardware in the libraries, access to higher speed data telecommunications, and the database searching skills of the librarians. 4. With libraries and their networks, the support structure to make good use of the NREN already exists. Librarians have been involved in using computers and telecommunications to solve information problems since the 1960s when the library community automated variable-length and complex records-a task which was not being done by the computer field at the time. Librarians pioneered in the development of standards so that thousands of libraries could all use the same bibliographic databases, unlike e- mail systems today which each require a different mode of address. The library profession has a strong public service orientation and a cooperative spirit; its codes of behavior fit well with that of the academic research community. Libraries have organized networks to share resources, pool purchasing power, and make the most efficient use of telecommunications capacity and technical expertise. Upgrading of technological equipment and technological retraining are recognized library requirements, although the resources to follow through are often inadequate. The retraining extends to library users as well. Librarians are familiar with the phenomenon of the home computer or VCR purchaser who can word process or play a tape, but is all thumbs when it comes to higher functions not used every day. Computer systems, networks, and databases can seem formidable to the novice and are often not user-friendly. Expert help at the library is essential for many users. 5. NREN development should build on existing federal investments in the sharing of library and information resources and the dissemination of government information. The Internet/NREN networks are in some cases not technically compatible with current library networking arrangements. However, the government or university database or individual expert most appropriate to an inquiry may well be available only via the Internet/NREN. Access to specific information resources and the potential linkage to scarce human resources is one reason why most librarians are likely to need at least some access to the NREN. As the Internet/NREN is used by various federal agencies, it becomes a logical vehicle for the dissemination of federal government databases. The Government Printing Office, through its Depository Library Program, has begun providing access to government information in electronic formats, including online databases. A unified government information infrastructure accessible through depository libraries would enable all sectors of society to use effectively the extensive data that is collected and disseminated by the federal government. Disseminating time- sensitive documents electronically would allow all citizens, small businesses, and nonprofit groups to have real-time access to government information through an existing organized system of depository libraries. The 51 regional libraries (generally one in each state, many of which are university and other libraries already connected to the Internet) could provide the original nodes for such a system. Together with major libraries capable of providing such support, these libraries could provide access for smaller libraries and selective depositories within their states or regions through dial-up facilities or local area networks. The library community has been assisted and encouraged in its networking efforts by the federal government beginning in the 1960s, and more recently by state support also, in ways that track well with the NREN model. The federal government spends in the neighbor- hood of $200 million per year on programs which promote and support interlibrary cooperation and resource sharing and library applications of new technology. These programs range from the Library Services and Construction Act, the Higher Education Act title II, the Depository Library Program, the library postal rate, and the Medical Library Assistance Act to programs of the three national libraries-the Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library, and the National Library of Medicine. If academic libraries continue their migration to the Internet/NREN as the network of choice both on campus and for communication with other academic institutions, it will not be long before academic libraries and public libraries find themselves unable to talk to one another electronically. This result will be totally at odds with the goals of every major legislative vehicle through which the federal government assists libraries. In addition, it makes no sense, given the intimate connection of public libraries to the support structure for research and education. While public libraries have long been recognized as engines of lifelong learning, the connection is much more direct in many cases, ranging from the magnificent research resources of a New York Public Library to the strong support for distance learning provided by many public libraries in Western states. Interlibrary loan and reference referral patterns also show that every kind of library supports every other's mission. The academic, public, school, state, national, and specialized libraries of the nation constitute a loose but highly interconnected system. A network which supports research and education, or even research alone, cannot accomplish the job without including this multitype system of libraries in planning, policy formulation, and implementation. 6. The NREN's higher seeds will enable the sharing of full text and nontextual library and archival resources. Libraries will increasingly need the higher capacity of the NREN to exploit fully library special collections and archives. The high data rates available over the fully developed NREN will make possible the transmission of images of journal articles, patents, sound and video clips, photos, artwork, manuscripts, large files from satellite data collection archives, engineering and architectural design, and medical image databases. Work has already begun at the national libraries and elsewhere; examples include the Library of Congress American Memory project and the National Agricultural Library text digitizing project. 7. Libraries provide a useful laboratory for exploration of what services and what user interfaces might stimulate a mass marketplace. One purpose of the NREN bills since the beginning has been to promote eventual privatization of the network. Libraries have already demonstrated the feasibility and marketability of databases in the CD-ROM format. Libraries also convinced proprietors and distributors to accommodate the mounting on local campus systems of heavily used databases. Libraries can serve as middle- to low-end network use test beds in their role as intermediaries between the public and its information requirements. 8. Public, school, and college libraries are appropriate institutions to bridge the growing gap between the information poor and the information rich. While we pursue information literacy for all the population, we can make realistic progress through appropriate public service institutions such as libraries. However, while an increase in commercial services would be welcome, any transition to privatization should not come at the expense of low-cost communications for education and libraries. Ongoing efforts such as federal library and education legislation, preferential postal rates for educational and library use, and federal and state supported library and education networks provide ample precedent for continued congressional attention to own and inexpensive access. In conclusion, the NREN legislation would be strengthened in reaching the potential of the network, in ALA's view, with the addition of the elements we have enumerated above. Our recommendations represent recognition of the substantial investment libraries have already made in the Internet and in the provision of resources available over it, authorization of modest and affordable near-term steps to build on that base for library involvement in the NREN, and establishment of a framework for compatible efforts through other federal legislation, and state and local library efforts. ATTACHMENT WASHINGTON OFFICE American Library Association 110 Maryland Avenue, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 547-4440 Resolution on a National Research and Education Network WHEREAS, The American Library Association endorsed the concept of a National Research and Education Network in a Resolution passed by its Council (1989-90 CD #54) on January 10, 1990; and WHEREAS, Legislation to authorize the development of a National Research and Education Network has not yet been enacted; and WHEREAS, High-capacity electronic communications is increasingly vital to research, innovation, education, and information literacy; and WHEREAS, Development of a National Research and Education Network is a significant infrastructure investment requiring a partnership of federal, state, local, institutional, and private-sector efforts; and WHEREAS, Libraries linked to the National Research and Education Network would spread its benefit more broadly, enhance the resources to be made available over it, and increase access to those resources; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the American Library Association reaffirm its support of a National Research and Education Network, and recommend incorporation of the following elements in NREN legislation: - Recognition of education in its broadest sense as a reason for development of the NREN; - Eligibility of all types of libraries to link to the NREN as resource providers and as access points for users; - A voice for involved constituencies, including libraries, in development of network policy and technical standards; - High-capacity network connections with all 50 states and territories; - Federal matching and other forms of assistance (including through other federal programs) to state and local education and library agencies, institutions, and organizations. Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association Chicago, Illinois January 16, 1991 (Council Document #40) Executive Offices: 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611 (312) 944-6780 ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W, Washington, DC. 20026 (202) 232-2466 FAX (202) 462-7849 Statement of the Association of Research Libraries to the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation for the Hearing Record of March 5, 1991 on S. 272 - The High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 The Association of Research Libraries is a non-profit Association of 119 research libraries in North America. The membership of ARL is actively involved in the provision of information resources - including those that are unique, to the research and education communities of North America. Research libraries also are key participants in numerous experiments and pilot programs that demonstrate the utility of high capacity networks for the exchange and use of information. ARL supports the passage of legislation that will promote the development and use of expanded networking capacities and capabilities to advance education and research. The need for a high-speed computer communications network is a reflection of a number of changes underway in the academic and library communities. Three of these changes include the need to connect researchers with facilities such as supercomputers, databases, and library resources; the changing manner in which scholars and researchers communicate; and finally, the ability of these researchers to manipulate and combine large data sets or files in new ways only possible through connecting users with high-speed, high-capacity networks. The NREN, the vision of the next generation network designed to support -the work of the education and research communities - must reflect the changes noted above as well as those efforts already underway that address the new uses of information, while at the same time, address the national goals of improving our Nation's productivity and international competitive position. To realize these goals and to build upon existing efforts, ARL with others in the education community support the inclusion of the following points in NREN legislation. These points build upon existing successful federal, state, and local programs that facilitate access to information resources. NREN authorizing legislation should provide for: - Recognition of education in its broadest sense as a reason for development of the NREN; - Eligibility of all types of libraries to link to the NREN as resource providers and as access points for users; - A voice for involved constituencies, including libraries, in development of network policy and technical standards. NREN legislation should authorize support for: - High capacity network connections with all 50 states; - A percentage of network development funds should be allocated for education and training; - Direct connections to the NREN for at least 200 key libraries and library organizations and dial-up access for multi-type libraries within each state to those key libraries. Prime candidates for direct connections include: *The three national libraries (Library of Congress, National Agricultural Library, National Library of Medicine) and other federal agency libraries and information centers; *51 regional depository libraries (generally one per state) which have a responsibility to provide free public access to all publications (including in electronic formats) of U.S. government agencies; *51 state library agencies (or their designated resource libraries or library networks) which have responsibility for statewide library development and which administer federal funds; *Libraries in geographic areas which have a scarcity of NREN connections; *Libraries with specialized or unique resources of national or international significance; *Library networks and bibliographic utilities which act on behalf of libraries. The National Science Foundation, through its various programs, including science education, should provide for: - The inclusion of libraries both within and outside of higher education and elementary/secondary education as part of the research and education support structure; - Education and training in network use at all levels of education; Experimentation and demonstrations in network applications. The information infrastructure of the United States is a complex conglomeration of public and private networks, institutions, information resources, and users from educational, research, library, and industrial communities with extensive ties to international networks and infrastructures. Research libraries and the resources that they acquire, organize, maintain, and/or provide access to, are critical elements of this infrastructure. In support of their mission to advance scholarship and research, these same libraries have been at the forefront of the technological revolution that has made this robust and evolving information infrastructure possible. One of the most exciting and unanticipated results of the NSFNET has been the explosive growth of the network as a communications link. The enhanced connectivity permits scholars and researchers to communicate in new and different ways and stimulates innovation. Approximately one-quarter of the use of NSFNET is for E-mail, one-quarter for file exchange, 20% for interactive applications, and 30% for associated services. It is this latter category that is growing at an extraordinary rate and includes new and innovative library uses of networks. This growth rate demonstrates the value that researchers place on access to library and information resources in support of education and research. The following examples demonstrate the types of activities underway in academic and research libraries that utilize networks. In the past year, the number of library online catalogs available on the Internet has jumped from thirty to over 160, including those in Canada, Australia, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, Israel, and the United Kingdom. A single point of access to 100 online public access catalogs is possible today through a midwestern university. Access to resources identified in online public access catalogs are of increasing importance to researchers as they can access a greatly expanded array of information resources and in a more timely and efficient fashion. Needed information can be located at another institution, and depending upon the nature and format of the information, downloaded directly, and/or requested via interlibrary loan. Over time, this practice will likely change to the researcher obtaining the information directly online versus "ordering the information online." Typical use of an online catalog at a major research institution is that of LIAS at the Pennsylvania State University Library - there are approximately 33,000 searches each day of the LIAS system. The National Agricultural Library, NAL, is supporting a project with the North Carolina State University Libraries to provide Internet-based document delivery for library materials. Scanned images of documents generate machine readable texts which are transmitted via the NSFNET/Internet to libraries, researchers work stations, and agricultural research extension offices. Images of documents can be delivered directly to the researchers computer, placed on diskette, or printed. This program will be extended to the entire land- grant community of over 100 institutions as well as to other federal agencies and to the international agricultural research community. Another example of new library services that are possible with the use of the information technologies and networks, that meet a growing demand in the research community, and represent a network growth area are the licensing of commercial journal databases by libraries. Four of the last five years of the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database is accessible to the University of California community and there are approximately 50,000 searches of the system each week. There are numerous benefits to researchers and libraries including enhanced access to journal literature, there are lower costs to the library than from use of commercial systems, and the lower costs encourages greater use of the files by researchers thus promoting innovation. As other research libraries mount files, similar use patterns have occurred. Although Internet access to proprietary files is not permitted, there are other services available such as UNCOVER that are more widely accessible. UNCOVER is a database with the tables of contents for approximately 10,000 multi-disciplinary journals developed by the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. The increasing demand for UNCOVER demonstrates the need for such services in the academic community and one that is available at a low cost for those institutions unable to locally mount proprietary files. One area of networked services forecast to present new opportunities for dissemination and exchange of information in the scholarly and research communities and where a significant amount of experimentation and "rethinking" is anticipated, is in electronic publishing. Publishing electronically is in its infancy. Today, there are ten refereed journals on the Internet and it is anticipated that there will be many times this number in a short while. These journals, available via the Internet, range from Postmodern Culture, (North Carolina State University) to New Horizons in Adult Education, (Syracuse University) to PSYCOLOQUY, (American Psychological Association and Princeton University). The nature and format of the electronic journal is evolving. To some, the electronic journal is a substitute to the "printed" journal. There are an increasing number of "paper- replicating electronic journals" and the growing number of titles on CD-ROM and the rapid rate of acceptance of this format, is a testament to the value of the electronic format. It is anticipated that many of the paper publishers will offer an electronic version of their journals via intermediaries such as DIALOG and CARL as the use of and capabilities of networks expand. This model also presents new dissemination choices to government agencies. The National Agricultural Library has begun to negotiate agreements with scholarly societies for the optical scanning of agricultural titles and information. Another view of the electronic journal is one more of process, than product. Information or an idea is disseminated on the network for open critique, comment, dialog, and exchange. In this instance, publishing is an ongoing, interactive, non-static function, and one that encourages creativity, connectivity, and interactivity. Researchers experimenting in this camp are referred to as "skywriters" or "trailblazers." In fact, publishing in this arena takes on a new meaning due to the network's capabilities. The use of multi-media including sound, text, and graphics, the significantly expanded collaborative nature of the scholarly exchange not possible with a printed scholarly publication, and finally, the potential for a continuously changing information source, distinguishes this electronic journal from its counterpart, the paper-replicating electronic journal. An online publishing program on the Genome Project at the Welch Library at Johns Hopkins University is an example of this type of electronic publishing. Text is mounted on a database, accessed by geneticists, students, and critics who respond directly via electronic mail to the author. In this case, a computerized textbook is the end result but one which constantly changes to reflect new advances in the field. Funding from the National Library of Medicine has supported this project. A final area where electronic publishing activities are underway is in the academic publishing community. Two examples of activities include efforts in the high energy physics and mathematics communities. A preprint database in high energy physics has been maintained for fifteen years by a university research facility with approximately 200 preprints added each week to the database of over 200,000 article citations. Instant Math Preprints (IMP), a new initiative that will maintain a searchable database of abstracts, will permit electronic file transfer of the full text of preprints. The project will be accessible via ten universities and "e-math," the American Mathematical Society's electronic service. The value to the research community of timely and effective exchange of research results will be enormous. There are two predominant reasons that pilot projects and experiments such as these have been possible, have flourished, and been successful. First, a high value has been placed and a significant investment has been made in carefully constructed cooperative programs in the library community to advance research through the sharing of resources. The creation and support of bibliographic utilities such as the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) has resulted in access by scholars to enormous databases of bibliographic records and information. Cooperative programs have been supported and encouraged by federal programs such as the Library Services and Construction Act of 1964 and the Higher Education Act of 1965. The Higher Education Act and in particular Title II-C and Title II-D programs have emphasized the sharing of resources between all types of libraries and users, and provided needed funds for support of technological innovations and developments. These programs have also promoted equality of access to information, ensuring that those collections housed in major research institutions, be broadly accessible. The second reason that libraries have succeeded in advancing the exchange of information resources is the effective use of technologies to promote access. Most, if not all of these cooperative programs, are dependent upon networks in part, as the means to identify and share information resources. What will be required as more resources become available through the Internet will be the development of network directories. These directories will assist users in learning of what resources are available and how to access them. Provision of these electronic resources and the development of the ensuing access tools such as directories are already presenting many challenges to library and information science professionals and will require continuing attention if the NREN is to succeed. As a consequence, the needed infrastructure to connect a diversity of users to a wide array of information resources is in place today. Networks interconnecting information resources and users throughout all parts of the United States and internationally, have been operational and effective for a number of years. A key factor that will permit the NREN to be a success is that much of the infrastructure is already in place. There are networks that interconnect academic institutions - public and private, industrial users, and state consortiums, that include library networks and that do not distinguish between rural and urban, academic and K-12. The NREN vision must continue to encourage and demand enhanced interconnectivity between all users and all types of institutions. As Congress considers how to best design the NREN to meet the needs of the research and academic communities, it will be important more than ever to include the goals and objectives of ongoing programs. In a time when there are 1,000 books published internationally each day, 9,600 different journals are published annually in the United States, the total of all printed knowledge is doubling every eight years, electronic information is just beginning to be exploited, and financial and funding resources are shrinking, it is critical that the research and education communities with continued federal support, strive for increased connectivity between all types of libraries and users. This connectivity will result in improved productivity and a strengthening of U.S. position in the international marketplace. S. 272 should provide the necessary framework to achieve this enhanced connectivity. S.272 should build upon existing programs and identify new means to permit information resources to be broadly available to the education and research communities. Ensuring connectivity through multiple types of libraries, throughout the United States, is a critical component to several existing statutes and should be included in NREN legislation. By so doing, the legislation would leverage existing federal, state, and local programs. As libraries and users alike employ information technologies to access information resources, new opportunities and applications will develop that exploit the wealth of information and knowledge available in research libraries. Network applications today primarily focus on the provision of access to resources such as books, journals, and online files. Electronic publishing ventures are just beginning. In the years ahead, scholars and researchers will be able to access and use those research materials and collections generally unaccessible but of extreme research value including photographs, satellite data, archival data, videos and movies, sound recordings, slides of paintings and other artifacts, and more. Access to and manipulation of these information resources advances scholarship and research, and scholars will expect a network with the capacity and capabilities to achieve effective access. Clearly, to be successful, effective, and of use to the academic and research communities, the NREN must be designed to nurture and accommodate both the current as well as future yet unknown uses of these valuable information resources. United States General Accounting Office Testimony GAO Supercomputing in Industry For Release on Delivery Expected at 2:00 p.m. EST Tuesday, March 5, 1991 Statement for the record by Jack L. Brock, Jr., Director Government Information and Financial Management Issues Information Management and Technology Division Before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation United States Senate GA/T-IMTEC-91-3 Messrs. Chairman and Members of the Committee and Subcommittee: I am pleased to submit this statement for the record, as part of the Committee's hearing on the proposed High Performance Computing Act of 1991. The information contained in this statement reflects the work that GAO has conducted to date on its review of how industries are using supercomputers to improve productivity, reduce costs, and develop new products. At your request, this work has focused on four specific industries--oil, aerospace, automobile, and pharmaceutical/chemical--and was limited to determining how these industries use supercomputers and to citing reported benefits. We developed this material through an extensive review of published documents and through interviews with knowledgeable representatives within the selected industries. In some cases, our access to proprietary information was restricted. Since this statement for the record reports on work still in progress, it may not fully characterize industry use of supercomputers, or the full benefits likely to accrue from such use. BACKGROUND A supercomputer, by its most basic definition, is the most powerful computer available at a given time. While the term supercomputer does not refer to a particular design or type of computer, the basic design philosophy emphases vector or parallel processing, [Footnote 1: Vector processing provides the capability of operating on arrays, or vectors, of information simultaneously. With parallel processing, multiple parts of a program are executed concurrently. Massively parallel supercomputers are currently defined as those having over 1,000 processors.] aimed at achieving high levels of calculation very rapidly. Current supercomputers, ranging in cost from $1 million to $30 million, are capable of performing hundreds of millions or even billions of calculations each second. Computations requiring many hours or days on more conventional computers may be accomplished in a few minutes or seconds on a supercomputer. The unique computational power of supercomputers makes it possible to find solutions to critical scientific and engineering problems that cannot be dealt with satisfactorily by theoretical, analytical, or experimental means. Scientists and engineers in many fields-- including aerospace, petroleum exploration, automobile design and testing, chemistry, materials science, and electronics-- emphasize the value of supercomputers in solving complex problems. Much of this work centers around scientific visualization, a technique allowing researchers to plot masses of raw data in three dimensions to create visual images of objects or systems under study. This enables researchers to model abstract data, allowing them to "see" and thus comprehend more readily what the data reveal. While still relatively limited in use, the number of supercomputers has risen dramatically over the last decade. In the early l980s, most of the 20 to 30 supercomputers in existence were operated by government agencies for such purposes as weapons research and weather modeling. Today about 280 supercomputers [Footnote 2: This figure includes only high-end supercomputers such as those manufactured by Cray Research, Inc. Including International Business Machines (IBM) mainframes with vector facilities would about double this number.] are in use worldwide. Government (including defense-related industry) remains the largest user, although private industry has been the fastest growing user segment for the past few years and is projected to remain so. The industries we are examining enjoy a reputation for using supercomputers to solve complex problems for which solutions might otherwise be unattainable. Additionally, they represent the largest group of supercomputer users. Over one-half of the 280 supercomputers in operation are being used for oil exploration; aerospace modeling, testing, and development; automotive testing and design; and chemical and pharmaceutical applications. THE OIL INDUSTRY The oil industry uses supercomputers to better determine the location of oil reservoirs and to maximize the recovery of oil from those reservoirs. Such applications have become increasingly important because of the low probability of discovering large oil fields in the continental United States. New oil fields are often small, hard to find, and located in harsh environments making exploration and production difficult. The oil industry uses two key supercomputer applications, seismic data processing and reservoir simulation, to aid in oil exploration and production. These applications have saved money and increased oil production. Seismic data processing increases the probability of determining where oil reservoirs are located by analyzing large volumes of seismic data [Footnote 3: Seismic data are gathered by using sound-recording devices to measure the speed at which vibrations travel through the earth.] and producing two and three- dimensional images of subsurface geology. Through the study of these images, geologists can better understand the characteristics of the area, and determine the probability of oil being present. More accurately locating oil reservoirs is important because the average cost of drilling a well is estimated at about $5.5 million and can reach as high as $50 million. Under the best of circumstances, most test wells do not result in enough oil to make drilling cost-effective. Thus, avoiding drilling one dry well can save millions of dollars. The industry representatives who agreed to share cost estimates with us said that supercomputer use in seismic data processing reduces the number of dry wells drilled by about 10 percent, at a savings of hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 5 years. Reservoir simulation is used to increase the amount of oil that can be extracted from a reservoir. Petroleum reservoirs are accumulations of oil, water, and gas within the pores of rocks, located up to several miles beneath the earth's surface. Reservoir modeling predicts the flow of fluids in a reservoir so geologists can better determine how oil should be extracted. Atlantic Richfield and Company (ARCO) representatives estimate that reservoir simulation used for the oil field at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska--the largest in production in the United States--has resulted in increased oil production worth billions of dollars. THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY Engineers and researchers also use supercomputers to design, develop, and test aerospace vehicles and related equipment. In particular, computational fluid dynamics, which is dependent upon supercomputing, enables engineers to simulate the flow of air and fluid around proposed design shapes and then modify designs accordingly. The simulations performed using this application are valuable in eliminating some of the traditional wind tunnel tests used in evaluating the aerodynamics of airplanes. Wind tunnels are expensive to build and maintain, require costly construction of physical models, and cannot reliably detect certain airflow phenomena. Supercomputer-based design has thus resulted in significant time and cost savings, as well as better designs, for the aerospace industry. Lockheed Aerospace used computational fluid dynamics on a supercomputer to develop a computer model of the Advanced Tactical Fighter for the U.S. Air Force. By using this approach, Lockheed was able to display a full-vehicle computer model of the fighter after approximately 5 hours of supercomputer processing time. This approach allowed Lockheed to reduce the amount of wind- tunnel testing by 80 hours, resulting in savings of about half a million dollars. The Boeing Aircraft Company used a Cray 1S-2000 supercomputer to redesign the 17-year old 737-200 aircraft in the early 1980s. Aiming to create a more fuel-efficient plane, Boeing decided to make the body design longer and replace the engines with larger but more efficient models. To determine the appropriate placement of these new engines, Boeing used the supercomputer to simulate a wind- tunnel test. The results of this simulation--which were much more detailed than would have been available from an actual wind-tunnel test--allowed the engineers to solve the engine placement problem and create a more fuel-efficient aircraft. THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY Automobile manufacturers have been using supercomputers increasingly since 1985 as a design tool to make cars safer, lighter, more economical, and better built. Further, the use of supercomputers has allowed the automobile industry to achieve these design improvements at significant savings. One supercomputer application receiving increasing interest is automobile crash-simulation. To meet federally mandated crash- worthiness requirements, the automobile industry crashes large numbers of pre-prototype vehicles head-on at 30 miles per hour into rigid barriers. Vehicles for such tests can cost from $225,000 to $750,000 each. Crash simulation using supercomputers provides more precise engineering information, however, than is typically available from actually crashing vehicles. In addition, using supercomputers to perform this type of structural analysis reduces the number of actual crash tests required by 20 to 30 percent, saving the companies millions of dollars each year. Simulations such as this were not practical prior to the development of vector supercomputing because of the volume and complexity of data involved. Automobile companies credit supercomputers with improving automobile design in other ways as well. For example, Chrysler Corporation engineers use linear analysis and weight optimization software on a Cray X-MP supercomputer to improve the design of its vehicles. The resulting designs--which, according to a Chrysler representative, would not have been practical without a supercomputer--will allow Chrysler to achieve an annual reduction of about $3 million in the cost of raw materials for manufacturing its automobiles. In addition, one automobile's body was made 10 percent more rigid (which will improve ride and handling) and 11 percent lighter (which will improve fuel efficiency). According to the Chrysler representative, this is typical of improvements that are being achieved through the use of its supercomputer. THE CHEMICAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES Supercomputers play a growing role in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, although their use is still in its infancy. From computer-assisted molecular design to synthetic materials research, companies in these fields increasingly rely on supercomputers to study critical design parameters and more quickly and accurately interpret and refine experimental results. Industry representative told us that, as a result, the use of supercomputing will result in new discoveries that may not have been possible otherwise. The pharmaceutical industry is beginning to use supercomputers as a research tool in developing new drugs. Development of a new drug may require up to 30,000 compounds being synthesized and screened, at a cost of about $5,000 per synthesis. As such, up to $150 million, before clinical testing and other costs, may he invested in discovering a new drug, according to an E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company representative. Scientists can now eliminate some of this testing by using simulation on a supercomputer. The supercomputer analyzes and interprets complex data obtained from experimental measurements. Then, using workstations, scientists can construct three-dimensional models of the large, complex human proteins and enzymes on the computer screen and rotate these images to gain clues regarding biological activity and reactions to various potential drugs. Computer simulations are also being used in the chemical industry to replace or enhance more traditional laboratory measurements. Du Pont is currently working to develop replacements for chlorofluorocarbons, compounds used as coolants for refrigerators and air conditioners, and as cleansing agents for electronic equipment. These compounds are generally thought to contribute to the ozone depletion of the atmosphere and are being phased out. Du Pont is designing a new process to produce substitute compounds in a safe and cost- effective manner. These substitutes will be more reactive in the atmosphere and subject to faster decomposition. Du Pont is using a supercomputer to calculate the thermodynamic data needed for developing the process. These calculations can be completed by the supercomputer in a matter of days, at an approximate cost of $2,000 to $5,000. Previously, such tests--using experimental measurements conducted in a laboratory--would require up to 3 months to conduct, at a cost of about $50,000. Both the cost and time required would substantially limit the amount of testing done. BARRIERS TO GREATER USE OF SUPERCOMPUTERS These examples demonstrate the significant advantages in terms of cost savings, product improvements, and competitive opportunity that can he realized through supercomputer use. However, such use is still concentrated in only a few industries. Our industry contacts identified significant, interrelated barriers that individually or collectively, limit more widespread use of supercomputers. Cost. Supercomputers are expensive. A supercomputer's cost of between $1 million and $30 million does not include the cost of software development, maintenance, or trained staff. Cultural resistance. Simulation on supercomputers can not only reduce the physical testing, measurement, and experimentation, but can provide information that cannot otherwise be attained. For many scientists and managers this represents a dramatic break with past training, experience, generally accepted methods, or common doctrine. For some, such a major shift in research methodology is difficult to accept. These new methods are simply resisted or ignored. Lack of application software. Supercomputers can be difficult to use. For many industry applications, reliable software has not yet been developed. This is particularly true for massively parallel supercomputers. Lack of trained scientists in supercomputing. Between 1970 and 1985, university students and professors performed little of their research on supercomputers. For 15 years, industry hired students from universities who did not bring supercomputing skills and attitudes into their jobs. Now, as a result, many high-level scientists, engineers, and managers in industry have little or no knowledge of supercomputing. In conclusion, our work to date suggests that the use of supercomputers has made substantial contributions in key U.S. industries. While our statement has referred to benefits related to cost reduction and time savings, we believe that supercomputers will increasingly be used to gain substantive competitive advantage. Supercomputers offer the potential--still largely untapped--to develop new and better products more quickly. This potential is just beginning to be explored, as are ways around the barriers that prevent supercomputers from being more fully exploited. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506 HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATIONS TESTIMONY OF D. ALLAN BROMLEY DIRECTOR OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SPACE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION U.S. SENATE MARCH 5, 1991 Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee: Thank you for giving me the opportunity, as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, to discuss with you the critically important issue of high performance computing and communications. On February 4, 1991, the President announced his proposed budget for Fiscal year 1992. Among the major new R&D programs in the budget is a Presidential initiative on high performance computing and communications, which is described in the report Grand Challenges: High Performance Computing and Communications. The report, which was released on February 5, 1991, was produced by a Working Group on High Performance Computing and Communications under the Committee on Physical, Mathematical, and Engineering Sciences, which is one of seven umbrella interagency committees under the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET). A copy of the report is attached. The overall goals of the high performance computing and communications initiative are symbolized by a set of what are called "grand challenges," problems of important scientific and social value whose solution could he advanced by applying high performance computing techniques and resources. These include global climate modeling, mapping the human genome, understanding the nature of new materials, problems applicable to national security needs, and the design of ever more sophisticated computers. Many such problems can be addressed through high performance computing and communications, including ones that are impossible to foresee today. The initiative represents a full integration of component programs in a number of Federal agencies in high performance computing and computer communications networks. It integrates and coordinates agency programs and builds on those programs where appropriate. The initiative proposes to increase funding in these programs by 30 percent, from the $489 million appropriated in FY 1991 to $638 millions in FY 1992. History of the Initiative The high performance computing and communications initiative can trace its formative years to the early 1980s, when the scientific community and federal agencies recognized the need for advanced computing in a wide range of scientific disciplines. As fields of science progressed, the quantity of data, the number of databases, and need for more sophisticated modeling and analysis all grew. The Lax Report of 1982 provided an opportunity to open discussions on the need for supercomputer centers beyond those previously at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. Subsequently, the availability of such resources to the basic research community expanded -. for example, through the establishment of the National Science Foundation's and NASA's supercomputing centers. In 1982 a FCCSET committee examined the status of supercomputing in the United States and reviewed the role of the federal government in the development of this technology. In 1985 this committee recommended government action necessary to retain technological supremacy in the development and use of supercomputers in the United States. Subsequent planning resulted in a series of workshops conducted in 1987 and in a set of reports that set forth a research and development strategy. A synthesis of the studies, reports, and planning was published by OSTP in the report entitled The Federal High Performance Computing Program. which was issued on September 8, 1989. The initiative in the FY 1992 budget represents an implementation by the participating agencies of the plan embodied in that report, appropriately updated to recognize accomplishments made to date. The report described a five-year program to be undertaken by four agencies -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Four additional partners have since joined the program -- the National Library of Medicine within the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the Department of Commerce - and they have added considerable strength to the overall program. The planning and implementation of the HPCC program have been the result of extraordinarily effective collaboration by the participating agencies using the FCCSET forum. It was developed alter several years of discussions among the agencies and hundreds of hours of negotiating and interactions between all federal government agencies with an interest in computing. Agencies have realigned and enhanced their HPCC programs, coordinated their activities with other agencies, and shared common resources. The final product represents a complex balance of relationships and agreements forged among the agencies over a number of years. These agencies have achieved a level of mutual trust, cooperation, and synergism that is remarkable in or out of government -- and not easily achieved. In addition, the success of this effort demonstrates the advantages to be gained by using the FCCSET process to coordinate areas of science and technology that cut across the missions of several federal agencies. The FCCSET interagency process maintains the necessary flexibility and balance of a truly integrated program as the science and technology evolve, and it allows additional agencies to identity opportunities and participate in a given program. Description of the Initiative The HPCC initiative is a program for research and development in all leading-edge areas of computing. The program has four major components: (1) High Performance Computing Systems, (2) Advanced Software Technology and Algorithms, (3) a National Research and Education Network (NREN), and (4) Basic Research and Human Resources. The program seeks a proper balance among the generic goals of technology development, technology dissemination and application, and improvements in U.S. productivity and industrial competitiveness. It incorporates general purpose advanced computing as well as the challenges ahead in massively parallel computing. In the development of computing hardware, ambitious goals have been set. The program seeks a thousandfold improvement in useful computing capability (to a trillion operations per second). The focus will be on the generic technologies that will prove valuable in many different sectors. Where appropriate, projects will be performed on a cost-shared basis with industry. In software development, the program will focus on the advanced software and algorithms that in many applications have become the determining factor for exploiting high performance computing and communications. In particular, software must become much more user-friendly if we are to provide a much larger fraction of the population with access to high performance computing. The National Research and Education Network (NREN) would dramatically expand and enhance the capabilities of the existing interconnected computer networks called the Internet. The overall goal is to achieve a hundredfold increase in communications speed (to levels of gigabits per second). In addition, the number of "on- ramps" and "off-ramps" to the network would he greatly expanded, bringing the potential of high performance computing to homes, offices, classrooms, and factories. Such a network could have the kind of catalytic effect on our society, companies, and universities that the telephone system has had during the twentieth century. A new meaning will be given to communication, involving not just the transfer of knowledge but a full sharing of resources and capabilities that no single site possesses. Finally, the HPCC initiative will add significantly to the nation's science and technology infrastructure through its impacts on education and basic research. It is my personal view that the successful implementation of this program will lay the foundation for changes in education at all levels, including the precollege level. Of course, no plan is better than its execution, and the execution of the HPCC initiative will rely heavily on the synergy that has been carefully cultivated among the participating agencies. This synergy has been fostered by allowing each agency to do what it does best in the way that it does best. Each of the four founding agencies has national constituencies and historical strengths. DARPA, for example, will lead in fostering the development of breakthrough system technologies, as it has done in the past for time-sharing, network operating systems, and RISC architecture. DOE, through its historical ties with the national laboratories, has always led in the development and use of HPCC technologies and is applying them on the cutting-edge of scientific problems. NASA will continue to pursue a new wave of space-related and aeronautics problems, such as computational aerodynamics, as well as its strength in the collection, modeling, simulating, and archiving of space-based environmental data. And NSF's close ties with the academic community gives it a special expertise in both education and in the coordination and use of NREN. Expected Returns of the Initiative The high performance computing and communications initiative represents a major strategic investment for the nation with both economic and social returns. I personally believe that few technology initiatives have the potential to have a greater impact on the ways we live and work than does the high performance computing and communications initiative. The high-performance end of the computer market is relatively small, but its influence far transcends its size. The high end is where leading-edge technologies and applications are developed. Recent history indicates that these developments diffuse so quickly throughout the overall market that "superminis" and "superworkstations" are no longer contradictions in terms. A federal investment in the leading-edge computing technology will speed the growth of the overall computer market and may catalyze investments on the part of U.S. industry. At the same time, supercomputers are not the only important hardware component; we shall not forget the importance of the smaller, more widely distributed units and their role in the overall system. In addition, the HPCC initiative will he a major contributor to meeting national needs. National security, health, transportation, education, energy, and environment concerns are all areas that have grown to depend on high performance computing and communications in essential ways. The dependence will grow as computers become more powerful, cheaper, more reliable, and more usable. HPCC is also critical for the nation's scientific infrastructure. The electronic computer was born as a scientific tool, and its early development was driven by scientific needs. Business applications soon came to dominate its development, but recently there has been a renewed focus on computers as an instrument in science. Indeed, "computational science," which incorporates modeling, simulation and data rendition, is adding a third dimension to experimentation and theory as modes of scientific investigation. In field after field of fundamental and applied sciences, problems intractable for either theory or experimentation are being successfully attacked with the aid of high speed computation. Diffusion of the Initiative's Benefits If the HPCC initiative is to realize its full potential, it is not enough that it reach its technology goals. It is equally important that the technologies be deployed by the private sector in a timely way to result in an acceleration of market growth. It is likewise insufficient for applications to be developed and problems to be solved; in addition, the benefits accruing from those solutions must be disseminated so as to influence our everyday lives. The continued development and use of government-funded high performance computing and communications prototypes can have a significant positive impact on the potential commercialization of these technologies. In addition, many organizations that cannot individually justify the hardware investments will be able to gain access to these new computing systems via the new network Thus, the knowledge gained through the timely development and use of prototype systems and the access provided to them by the network will significantly improve the dissemination of the benefits of the initiative. However, this wide diffusion is not possible by federal action alone. The Administration's HPCC initiative will serve the nation best as a catalyst for private actions. Some analysts have suggested that the HPCC initiative can spur several hundred billion dollars of GNP growth. If so, it will be because American companies, both large and small, are able to deploy the technologies in producing quality goods and services. Similarly, some predict that NREN will lead to the establishment of a truly national high speed network that connects essentially every home and every office. If that happens, it will be because private investments are stimulated by government leadership. Far from suppressing or displacing the focus of a free market, the HPCC initiative will strengthen them by providing the impetus for vigorous private action. Congressional Initiatives in High Performance Computing and Communications The breadth and balance of the high performance computing and communications initiative are critical to its success. The four components of the program are carefully balanced, and maintaining this balance is the most important priority in the program. For example, powerful computers without adequate software, networking, and capable people would not result in successful applications. A program that created only high performance networks would not satisfy the need for greater computing performance to take advantage of the networks and solve important problems. Similarly, the Administration's initiative relies on substantial participation by industry and government laboratories to overcome barriers to technology transfer. Cooperative government, industry, and university activities will yield the maximum benefits derived from moving new technologies from basic discoveries to the marketplace. The legislative proposals pending before the Congress, though well intended, do not fully recognize the comprehensive interagency effort brought about through years of collaboration. For example, S. 272 only specifies the program for two of the four major agencies included in the high performance computing and communications initiative. In addition, S. 272 incorrectly specifies the roles of the agencies; many of the requirements of the legislation have, in fact, already been accomplished; and the agencies have moved on to further scientific and technical challenges. The legislation, in effect, may detract from the existing programs by limiting the activities of the agencies and by causing an unintended revision of complex relationships forged between the agencies. For these reasons, I strongly believe that FCCSET activities should not be codified in law. I am concerned that legislative action not limit the flexibility of what is by nature an extremely dynamic process. When research plans are developed to implement interagency programs, those plans are inevitably dynamic, just as the research efforts they describe are dynamic and evolving. If research plans are codified in law, it suggests that the research is static. This is particularly a concern with high performance computing and communications, where the pace of technological change is dramatic. As an example of a fast-moving research opportunity, I might mention a joint Los Alamos National Laboratory/DARPA effort that successfully applied an innovative massively parallel Connection Machine Computer system to a nuclear weapons safety code to gain new and valuable insights into the safety of the nuclear weapons inventory. Another example occurred in the last year at the National Library of Medicine's National Center for Biotechnology Information, where researchers developed a new fast algorithm for sequence similarity searches of protein and nucleic acid databases. This was very helpful in the identification of a gene causing von Rocklinghausen's neurofibromatosis. This is a major breakthrough in the understanding of this bewildering disorder that affects about 1 in 3,000 people. On the networking front, significant achievements have also been made. For example, the NSFNET has increased in speed a thousandfold (from 56 kilobits per second to 45 megabits per second) since 1988. S. 272 has as its focal point the issuing of a plan that would delineate agency roles and include specific tasks. However, the Administration's initiative and the accompanying FCCSET report satisfy these demands for items to be incorporated in the planning phase. S. 272 further calls for the establishment of an advisory panel to provide additional input into the plan. But many of the agencies already have current advisory panels, and private sector participation is fully anticipated in the Administration's initiative as agency programs move forward to implementation. Moreover, the oversight role of the Congress, including the hearings scheduled this week in the House and Senate, serve as important elements in the fine tuning of the program. The National Research and Education Network described in the initiative addresses the need for greatly enhanced computer communications highlighted in the legislation. The initiative also seeks to be comprehensive in addressing the roles of the various R&D agencies -- for example, by allowing other agencies to join the effort as appropriate. It bears emphasis that the Administration's initiative uses the existing statutory, programmatic, budgetary, and authorizing authorities of the agencies and departments involved in the initiative, including OSTP. The funding levels necessary to proceed with this effort have been transmitted to the Congress in the President's request and are clearly reflected in the budgets of each of the eight agencies involved in the initiative. The Congress already has the ability to positively affect the high performance computing program of the federal government through existing authorizations and appropriations. FCCSET is a very important mechanism within the Executive Branch for reviewing and coordinating research and development activities that cut across the missions of more than one federal agency. Unlike the committees in the Legislative Branch, each of which has discrete authority for oversight, interagency committees within FCCSET are forums for discussion, analysis, collaboration, and consensus building. The member agencies then have the responsibility for implementing the program and proceeding with the necessary contracting, budgeting, and so on developed through the interagency process. Several legislative vehicles, in addition to S. 272, have been introduced that seek to endorse and advance the Administration's initiative. I welcome the Congress's interest and intentions in high performance computing and communications. I am confident that by working together we can have a significant impact on the nation's future through these efforts, and I welcome suggestions from Congress to improve the current initiative. I might suggest that hearings to receive the views of all the various communities involved with this proposal and a positive endorsement of this program by Congress would be of great assistance in advancing high performance computing and communications in this country. Positive action on the requested appropriations will ensure that this extensive interagency program can go forward. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, let me conclude by saying that I look forward to working cooperatively with you on this initiative. We share the same goals, and I am confident that we can reach a consensus on how best to achieve them. CONVEX COMPUTER CORPORATION WRITTEN STATEMENT Presented to U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space CONVEX supports S. 272, the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991, as we believe it will assist U.S. industry in maintaining leadership in computing technology. We strongly believe this legislation can positively contribute to one of the biggest threats facing the United States today: the loss of our international competitiveness in all technology related businesses. In addition, it will directly stimulate the supercomputing industry. Europe and Japan have targeted information technologies for particular attention, and unless decisive steps are taken to ensure our continued leadership, the U.S. could be surpassed in a technology field that we largely pioneered and which is vital to our economic future. The real American competitiveness question involves making our nation's industries competitive. The use of supercomputers is mandatory to maintaining America's competitive edge in all of our key industries, such as aerospace, automotive, electronics, pharmaceuticals, petroleum, etc. -- not just in supercomputing manufacturing. We believe the actions called for in S. 272 -- particularly the acceleration of the development of computer systems and subsystems, the stimulation of research on software technology, and the application of high-performance computing to "Grand Challenges" - - are not only appropriate goals, but vital to maintaining the U.S. lead in supercomputers and utilizing supercomputer technology in our high-tech industries and research. Supercomputers are the fundamental building blocks that contribute to almost all disciplines across the broadest spectrum of science and technology. In the 1990's, the way America can stay competitive is literally to put supercomputing in the hands of the "masses." Supercomputers are to the modern technologist what the invention of the microscope was to biologists and the telescope was to astronomers. In fact, supercomputers enable scientists and engineers to solve problems for things that are too small, too large, too quick, too slow, or too dangerous to observe directly. This use in industry results in new products that are more innovative, safer, and get to market more quickly. Their use in research results in fundamental breakthroughs in science that change how we see the world. The supercomputer is the one common tool across all U.S. scientific and technological activities that, if put in the hands of engineers and scientists throughout the United States, can dramatically sharpen the competitive output of the United States. Of course, Japanese industry and research institutions totally understand and believe these concepts. From our perspective, they have been the fastest nation to purchase CONVEX's latest technology. Until just recently, there were more of CONVEX's top- of-the-line supercomputers in Japan than in the United States. American researchers and engineers believe these concepts also, but access to supercomputer tools has been limited. S. 272 can be the catalyst to change this trend. CONVEX's assessment of the competitive position of the high- performance computer industry in the U.S. relative to that of Japan is as follows: The high-performance computer market is an international market in which Cray dominates the high-end of the market, and CONVEX dominates the mid-range market. The Japanese computer manufacturers, NEC, Fujitsu, and Hitachi, have high performance, fast hardware products. But while this is the case, U.S. high performance computer companies currently maintain the lead in supercomputing for the following reason: supercomputing is not about hardware, it's about solving complex problems. The U.S. supercomputer companies are ahead of foreign competition because we understand there are aspects to supercomputing solutions: o Balanced, high-performance hardware: There is more to real performance than pure megaflops or gigaflops performance. Unfortunately, that' s how performance is commonly measured but these definitions must be properly interpreted. There is much more to useful performance than peak speed, such as software performance, memory performance, and 1/0 performance. Users care only about the performance of their applications -- the problems they specifically solve with their machines -- and this type of performance is determined by dozens o attributes. In terms of speed, the Japanese have high peak performance, but that's only a part of the supercomputing solution. o Software technology -- Operating systems (UNIX) and compilers: Maintaining the lead requires being proficient at several software standards. Companies such as CONVEX and Cray recognized the emergence of the UNIX standard long ago and designed their machines for UNIX -- now considered a requirement in supercomputing. Japanese systems have historically been based on IBM standards and only now are attempting to migrate to UNIX. Also superior compiler technology is critical to computing performance and productivity. American companies and research institutions lead in this areas, as well. o Application specific software: Most of the supercomputers in use today, especially in industry, utilize third-party written software applications rather than custom-written software applications. The majority of that third-party software is developed by U.S. based organizations. CONVEX considers having both a broad array of application software available on its machines and having agreements/relationships with the software developers, as critical elements of its competitive strategy and success. American suppliers are leading in this crucial area. o Service and support -- taking care of the customer: This is a critical component in supercomputing solutions. American companies' reputations in the area of service and support are superior. American suppliers utilize direct sales and support organizations in all major markets and, as such, are closer to the customer. Outside of Japan, Japanese manufacturers typically use distributors or OEMs for sales and customer support. It would be naive to believe that U.S. companies will always be able to maintain the supercomputer lead for the reasons cited above without continual development and diligence in these areas. The Japanese can -- and will, in time -- develop these necessary strengths. Although CONVEX has been selling its supercomputers successfully to the Japanese for almost six years now, we also realize that when, or if, the Japanese companies decide that the price/performance market niche that CONVEX currently dominates is a viable and sizable market for Japan, the competitiveness threat posed by Japan can become very serious. The biggest threats posed by the Japanese to American supercomputer companies are: o The size of the big three Japanese companies is over $89 billion, which provides substantial financial staying power. This gives them the ability to mask the success or lack of success of their supercomputer products versus U.S. supercomputer companies, whose existence relies solely on the success of their supercomputers. o Furthermore, they can afford to not be profitable in the supercomputer market segment for a very long period of time and can buy market share by excessive and unreasonable discounting, while public U.S. companies are forced to live by quarter to quarter reporting, which represents the results of a single technology focus. o The big three Japanese computer companies also dominate the semiconductor industry, including advanced semiconductor research and development required to build supercomputers. o The cost of capital differs substantially for U.S. versus Japanese companies. In light of these factors, staying competitive in today's global supercomputer market will take a concerted effort by American companies, as well as cooperation and constructive stimulation by government. Certainly, the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 will be a positive contribution in this direction. Comments on the bill. S. 272 General Comments CONVEX enthusiastically supports this legislation and commends it to you for your favorable consideration and swift passage in the House. We fully support the idea of a "National High-Performance Computing Program." There are several provisions of the bill on which I would like to comment and highlight. The High-Performance Computing Advisory Panel The federal government has played a prominent role in the American supercomputing success story and S. 272 again demonstrates this leadership. In several areas of the bill, cooperation between government and industry is called for to review progress made in implementing the plan and making necessary revisions. In particular, the bill calls for the establishment of a High- Performance Computing Advisory Panel consisting of representatives from industry and academia to assist with these tasks. I want to highlight this concept as being extremely important to achieving the objectives of the bill. The results of the expenditures for equipment and research called for by the bill must ultimately be the development of competitively superior commercial products. The strategic plan that is put into place by this bill should have this as a fundamental objective. Government is better qualified for some aspects of the task, and industry is better qualified for others. Partnership between the two will allow the plan to utilize the best capabilities of both. CONVEX has exposure to applications, research and product developments occurring all over the world, and in the broadest of scientific areas. We volunteer to help in whatever ways we can. The National Research and Education Network (NREN) CONVEX fully supports the bill's provision calling for the creation of a multi-gigabit-per-second National Research and Education Network (NREN). It is our perspective that in the past, too much emphasis was placed on providing limited access to too few centralized machines. Supercomputing must be made available to, and meet the needs of, a broad base of users through widely distributed supercomputer systems placed closer to the ultimate user. This would not supplant the centralized machines, but rather complement them. I suggest that in establishing NREN, it should not only be envisioned as a multi-gigabit per second backbone network, connecting only a small number of very high-speed, centralized computer systems. Let's think of it as a distributed network of computing and telecommunications services, serving the widest possible number of scientists and engineers from government. industry and academia. The National Science Foundation's national supercomputer centers represent a case in point. The program has been a success, but we can learn from what those users are additionally asking for: supercomputing close to the user. Let's supplement and complement the national supercomputer centers with affordable, open, accessible supercomputing facilities, available in departments and dedicated to products across the nation. Let's put a broad range of supercomputers, distributed data bases, and other research and production facilities, in the very laps of those who need them to help maintain and regain America's preeminence in many disciplines. Software In the last ten years, only about 300 high-end supercomputers have been sold by U.S. companies to industry and to research institutions. From CONVEX alone, over 600 high-performance computing systems have been shipped in only five years. American industry needs distributed, affordable supercomputing power to remain competitive. These companies, large and small, are voting with their checkbooks for this means of providing supercomputing. They are using supercomputing in production environments, not just in their research laboratories. They need supercomputers to bring new and improved products to market faster. Supercomputers are a valued competitive weapon for all of these companies. The full utility of supercomputers can only be reached through software. The sophisticated supercomputing user community desperately needs improved software development tools, computer- assisted software engineering (CASE) capabilities, and better algorithmic methods. With this improved state-of-the-art software, we can move forward with attacks on the Grand challenges enumerated in the bill. CONVEX wholeheartedly supports the software tasks and goals of the bill. Care should be taken to ensure that resources are not wasted by reinventing what may already exist in industry or somewhere in the world. ~t' s concentrate on improving software technology, but adhering to industry standards wherever possible, and avoiding proliferating proprietary solutions to software problems. Basic Research and Education CONVEX strongly supports the provisions of the bill in the areas of basic research and education. Only the largest and richest corporations can afford to have very much of their resources dedicated to basic research. Most of the industry, and I count CONVEX in this group, must use its limited research and development resources in the development and production of the next generations of our commercial products. So we need a fertile source of basic research if the supercomputer industry and the nation are to progress. Again, this must be treated as a partnership. We must create effective, efficient, fast-acting technology transfer mechanisms so that our basic research can be fully utilized. We. therefore. recommend that the bill specifically call for the creation of a separate. responsible Technology Transfer Program Office to insure that basic research is translated into products to be used to further all of our goals. In the area of education, the United States needs a great deal of assistance to help us remain competitive. The bill's provisions to educate and train additional undergraduate and graduate students in software engineering, computer science, and computational science and to provide researchers, educators, and students with access to high-performance computing are extremely worthwhile. However, the intent of the bill should be applied across the board in the supercomputing industry and should include mechanical engineers, packaging engineers, chemical engineers and others. Summary In summary, I recommend this bill to you. The amount of funding called for by this bill is indeed small when compared to the significant economic benefit the program will bring to U.S. industrial competitiveness. It is essential that the United States remain aggressive in the area of supercomputer technology. This bill will combine the resources of U.S. industry, government, and universities to meet the challenge of foreign competition. Testimony by DR. JOHN PATRICK CRECINE PRESIDENT, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY for a Hearing of THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION March 5, 1991 Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to be asked to testify to this joint hearing on S.R. 272, The High Performance Computing Act of 1991. I am John P. Crecine, President of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Georgia Tech is a major technological university, with an enrollment of approximately 12,000 students, located in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia Tech is one of the nation's leading research universities, having conducted over $175 million in sponsored research during the past year, almost all in the areas of science, engineering and technology. I would like to thank this committee, and especially Senator Gore, for their continued strong support of computing-related research. I think the committee's focus on computing in the context of national competitiveness is an appropriate one, and one that leads to the anticipation of critical technologies. Georgia Tech strongly supports S.R. 272, and eagerly awaits possible participation in translating its objectives into reality. Georgia Tech, as a major technological university, has placed a high priority on computing and related facilities. This may be best demonstrated by the creation in 1989 of the College of Computing, the nation's first college devoted entirely to computing. Both within the College of Computing, and throughout the rest of the Institute, there is a deep and comprehensive involvement with leading-edge computational science and engineering. For this reason, the activities proposed under the High Performance Computing Initiative are eagerly awaited. The special importance of creating a high-performance computing network like NREN is its impact not only on computing research itself, but its creation of a basic "digital infrastructure" for the nation. Communications, both simple - like a phone dial tone - and complicated - like HDS - will be dependent on digital networks. Communications make it possible for the first time to conduct research and advance scientific frontiers from afar, combining the parts of experimental setups from around the country instead of expensively reproducing them in many locations. Equally important to utilizing this network capability is the complementing parts of the high performance computing initiative. Thus, the technology of a digital network like NREN lies at the heart of most future research efforts in science and engineering. Specifically, the impact of this legislation on technologically-oriented educational institutions like Georgia Tech will be multidimensional. I would like to focus my remarks today on three areas: engineering education, computer science, and technological applications. Engineering, and engineering education, is Georgia Tech's "core business," and stands to benefit greatly from this initiative in high performance computing. As the role of computing has grown, up-to- date computing facilities are no longer a luxury, but a necessary, integral part in engineering education and research. For example, at the graduate level, we must have the computational facilities that will enable us to train our students in computer-based science and engineering techniques, skills industry expects our students to have. The connectivity in the network already allows our students to use remote facilities such as telescopes and high-energy research facilities without the cost and capacity constraints inherent in those sites. However, an initiative such as this expands exponentially the opportunities available to them. What NREN does is shift the focus from physically having a a high-powered and expensive computational device such as a supercomputer to access to one of these devices. In the end, this makes for a much more productive and cost-effective environment for creating and disseminating knowledge. The new capabilities given us by the high performance computing initiative have impressive spin-off effects as well. As more students, professors and researchers gain access to advance computing, I predict we will see an impressive array of offshoot, but related, architectures and systems that will take full advantage of the capabilities of this network. Once again, this is an issue of national competitiveness, an area where this initiative gives our universities and research laboratories the tools with which to compete. Just as engineering has been traditionally important to Georgia Tech, we are taking a leadership position in computing with the creation of our College of Computing. This College of Computing, while not representing the entire spectrum of computing at Georgia Tech, was created as a top-level organization to emphasize computing, and speed the integration of computer science and other disciplines. In many respects, this organization parallels the objectives of this high performance computing initiative and NREN. Simply put, high performance computing is a top priority, one in which we have invested in and focused on, and is a natural area for a university like Georgia Tech to concentrate in. I see a very positive dual flow between the high performance initiative and our computer science operations. First, many of the areas we are focusing on, specifically management of large scientific databases and distributed operating systems for highly parallel machines, are topics important to the success of the HPC initiative, and we hope to be able to contribute our expertise in these areas toward making the initiative a success. We are also forming a Visualization, Graphics and Usability (VGU) lab under prominent national leadership to develop better techniques for visualizing scientific data, an critical component of this proposed network. But we also envision that the project will benefit computing at Georgia Tech by adding to our own knowledge and expertise, and should aid not only Georgia Tech but many other universities nationwide. The HPCI will have a major positive affect on many areas of basic computer science research, even in ways that are not directly related to high performance computing. For example, the visualization advances I just talked about have applicability to low-performance computing, and work in user interfaces for all types of computers could be aided by work done through the high performance project. The third area where I feel the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 will have a critical impact is in the development of new technological applications. Georgia Tech is not an "ivory tower" - we solve some very applied problems, and focus on transferring the technology developed in our laboratories to the marketplace. I believe we are on the threshold of a revolution in telecommunications, a merging of the traditional telecommunications industry with the computer and broadcast industries, with the common denominator of a digital network tieing them all together. This act developments such a network (and the functions that support and depend on the network), propelling universities into an integrated communications environment that is a natural test bed for future communications systems. Other countries have been furthering this concept, but development in the United States has been hampered by the regulatory environment and hurdles imposed by previous paradigms. In this vision, we should view NREN not so much as a way to link scholars or transfer data, but as an experimental tool in itself. The network is then a test of its own capabilities, that is, a test of the capabilities of a digital network, its speed, volume, and capacity for accommodating different signals. Its success impacts not only the educational community, but demonstrates this new model for telecommunications and firmly establishes a United States lead in these technologies. In the end, the issue becomes one of educational competitiveness. Without the resources, opportunities and challenges network-based computing opens up for our engineers, we would quickly be non- competitive not only nationally, but internationally. This initiative lays important groundwork for the the U.S. to regain the initiative in high-performance computing and to increase our edge in network technologies. In closing, I would like to especially express my support for the administration's multi-year approach to this project. If we are to undertake a project of this magnitude, a five-year commitment on the part of the government makes it much easier and more efficient to both plan for and attract talent to this project. Georgia Tech is especially supportive of the roles of NSF, NASA and DARPA in administering this project. Given their prior leadership and track record in running projects of this scope, it makes eminent good sense for this triad to lead an initiative as significant as this one. This is a remarkable opportunity, and I, as President of Georgia Tech, stand ready, as do many of my colleagues in universities around the country, to assist in any way possible to make this vision a reality. STATEMENT OF SENATOR AL GORE TUESDAY, MARCH 5 HEARING ON S. 272, THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ACT OF 1991 Today, the Science Subcommittee is considering S. 272, the High- Performance Computing Act. This bill will ensure that the United States stays at the leading edge in computer technology. It would roughly double the Federal government's investment in research and development on new supercomputers, more advanced software, and high-speed computer networks. Most importantly, it would create a National Research and Education Network, the NREN, which would connect more than one million people at more than a thousand colleges, universities, laboratories, and hospitals throughout the country, giving them access to computing power and information resources unavailable anywhere today. These technologies and this network represent our economic future. They are the smokestack industries of today's Information Age. We talk a lot now about jobs and economic development; about pulling our country out of recession and into renewal. Our ability to meet the economic challenges of the Information Age and beyond -- tough challenges from real competitors around the globe -- will rest in large measure on our ability to maintain and strengthen an already threatened lead in these technologies and industries. I have been advocating legislation such as this for more than one dozen years because I strongly believe that it is critical for our country to develop the best scientists, the best science, the fastest, most powerful computers, and then, to ensure access to these technologies to as many people as possible so as many people as possible will benefit from them. This legislation will help us do that. Every year, there are new advocates. This year, finally, President Bush is among them, including his budget for Fiscal Year 1992, $149 million in new funding to support these technologies. We cannot afford to wait or, to put off this challenge. Not if we care about jobs, economic development, or our ability to hold our own in world markets. During the last thirty years, computer technology has improved exponentially, faster than technology in any other field. Computers just keep getting faster, more powerful, and more inexpensive. According to one expert, if automobile technology had improved as much as computer technology has in recent years, a 1991 Cadillac would now cruise at 20,000 miles per hour, get 5,000 miles to a gallon, and cost only three cents! As a result of these amazing advances, computers have gone from being expensive, esoteric research tools isolated in the laboratory to an integral part of our everyday life. We rely on computers at the supermarket, at the bank, in the office, and in our schools. They make our life easier in hundreds of ways. Yet the computer revolution is not over. In fact, according to some measures, the price-performance ratio of computers is improving even faster now than it has in the past. Anyone who has seen a supercomputer in action has a sense of what computers could do in the future. Today, scientists and engineers are using supercomputers to design better airplanes, understand global warming, find oil fields, and discover safer, more effective drugs. In many cases they can use these machines to mimic experiments that would be too expensive or downright impossible in real life. With a supercomputer model, engineers at Ford can simulate auto crashes and test new safety features for a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time it would take to really crash an automobile. And they can observe many more variables, in much more detail, than they could with a real test. The bill we are considering today is very similar to the first title of S. 1067, the High-Performance Computing Act of 1990, which passed the Senate unanimously last October. Unfortunately, the House was unable to act on the bill before we adjourned. It is my hope that we will be able to move this bill quickly this year. There is widespread support in both the House and the Senate. In the House, Congressman George Brown, the new chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, has introduced a very similar bill, H.R. 656, which has been cosponsored by Congressmen Tim Valentine, Sherwood Boehlert, Norm Mineta, and others. On Thursday, the Science Committee's Subcommittee on Science and its Subcommittee on Technology and Competitiveness will be holding a hearing on the bill. I look forward to working with my House colleagues to move this bill as quickly as possible. This legislation provides for a multi-agency high-performance computing research and development program to be coordinated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), whose director, Dr. D. Allan Bromley, is our first witness today. The primary agencies involved are the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Department of Energy (DOE). Each of these agencies has experience in developing and using high-performance computing technology. S. 272 will provide for a well-planned, well-coordinated research program which will effectively utilize the talents and resources available throughout the Federal research agencies. In addition to NSF, NASA, DOE, and DARPA, this program will involve the Department of Commerce (in particular the National Institute of Standards and Technology and NOAA), the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, the United States Geological Survey, the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Library of Congress, as well. The technology developed under this program will find application throughout the Federal government and throughout the country. S. 272 will roughly double funding for high-performance computing at NSF and NASA during the next five years. Additional funding -- more than $1 billion during the next five years -- will also be needed to expand research and development programs at DARPA and DOE. Last year, I worked closely with Senators Johnston and Domenici on the Energy Committee to pass legislation to authorize a DOE High-Performance Computing Program, and I hope to work with them and the other members of the Energy Committee to see that program authorized and funded in fiscal year 1992. Already, Senator Johnston and others have introduced S. 343, which would authorize DOE's part of this multi-agency program. To fund DOD's part of the program, last year I worked with Senators Nunn and Bingaman and others on the Armed Services Committee to authorize and appropriate an additional $20 million for DARPA's high-performance computing program, money that has been put to good use developing more powerful supercomputers and faster computer networks. Advanced computer technology was a key ingredient of the allies' success in the Persian Gulf War, but we cannot simply rely on existing technology, we must make the investment needed to stay at the leading edge. It is important to remember the Patriot missile and the Tomahawk cruise missile rely on computers based on technologies developed through Federal computer research programs in the 1970's. The High-Performance Computing Act will help ensure the technological lead in weaponry that helped us win the war with Iraq and that will improve our national security in the future. This same technology is improving our economic security by helping American scientists and engineers develop new products and processes to keep the U.S. competitive in world markets. Supercomputers can dramatically reduce the time it takes to design and test a new product -- whether it is an airplane, a new drug, or an aluminum can. More computing power means more energy-efficient, cheaper products in all sectors of manufacturing. And that means higher profits and more jobs for Americans. Perhaps the most important contribution this bill will make to our economic security is the National Research and Education Network, the cornerstone of the program funded by this bill. By 1996, this fiber-optic computer network would connect more than one million people at more than one thousand colleges and universities in all fifty states, allowing them to send electronic mail, share data, access supercomputers, use research facilities such as radio telescopes, and log on to data bases containing trillions of bytes of information on all sorts of topics. This network will speed research and accelerate technology transfer, so that the discoveries made in our university laboratories can be quickly and effectively turned into profits for American companies. Today, the National Science Foundation runs NSFNET, which allows researchers and educators to exchange up to 1.5 million bits of data (megabits) per second. The NREN will be at least a thousand times faster, allowing researchers to transmit all the information in the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica from coast to coast in seconds. With today's networks, it is easy to send documents and data, but images and pictures require much faster speeds. They require the NREN, which can carry gigabits, billions of bits, every second. With access to computer graphics, researchers throughout the country will be able to work together far more effectively than they can today. It will be much easier for teams of researchers at colleges throughout the country to work together. They will be able to see the results of their experiments as the data comes in, they will be able to share the results of their computer models in real-time, and they will be able to brainstorm by teleconference. William Wulf, formerly Assistance Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering at NSF, likes to talk about the "National Collaboratory" -- a laboratory without walls which the NREN will make possible. Researchers throughout the country, at colleges and labs, large and small, will be able to stay on top of the latest advances in their fields. The NREN and the other technology funded by S. 272 will also provide enormous benefits to American education, at all levels. By most accounts, we are facing a critical shortage of scientific and technical talent in the next ten years. By connecting high schools to the NREN, students will be able to share ideas with other high school students and with college students and professors throughout the country. Already, some high school students are using the NSFNET to access supercomputers, to send electronic mail, and to get data and information that just is not available at their schools. In this way, the network can nurture and inspire the next generation of scientists. Today, most students using computer networks are studying science and engineering, but there are more and more applications in other fields, too. Economists, historians, and literature majors are all discovering the power of networking. In the future, I think we will see computers and networks used to teach every subject from kindergarten through grad school. I was recently at MIT, where I was briefed on Project Athena, a project to integrate computers and networks into almost every course at MIT. Students use computers to play with the laws of physics in computer models, to test airplane designs in wind tunnel simulations, to improve their writing skills, and to learn foreign languages. Many of the ideas being developed at Project Athena and in hundreds of other experiments elsewhere could one day help students and teachers throughout the country. The library community has been at the forefront in using computer and networking technology in education. For years, they have had electronic card catalogues which allow students to track down books in seconds. Now they are developing electronic text systems which will store books in electronic form. When coupled to a national network like the NREN, such a "Digital Library" could be used by students and educators throughout the country, in underfunded urban schools and in isolated rural school districts, where good libraries are few and far between. I recently spoke to the American Library Association annual meeting in Chicago and heard many librarians describe how the NREN could transform their lives. They are excited about the new opportunities made possible by this technology. The technology developed for the NREN will pave the way for high-speed networks to our homes. It will give each and everyone of us access to oceans of electronic information, let us use teleconferencing to talk face-to-face to anyone anywhere, and deliver advanced, digital programming even more sophisticated and stunning than the HDTV available today. Other countries, Japan, Germany, and others, are spending billions of install optical fiber to the home, to take full advantage of this technology. With this bill we can help shape the future -- shape it for the better. This is an investment in our national security and our economic security which we cannot afford not to make. For that reason I was very glad to see the Administration propose a High- Performance Computing and Communications Initiative, a program very similar to the program outlined in S. 272. I intend to work closely with Dr. Bromley and others within the Administration as well as my colleagues in Congress to secure the funding needed to implement this critically-important program. I look forward to hearing the testimony of Dr. Bromley and all of the distinguished witnesses who have made time in their very busy schedule to be here today. And I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Commerce Committee towards passage of this bill. Statement of Mr. Tracey Gray Vice President of Marketing Government Systems Division US Sprint Communications Company Limited Partnership Before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation United States Senate Room 252, Russell Senate Office Building March 5, 1991 2:00 p.m. Hearings before the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on S.272, The High Performance Computing Act of 1991 Washington, D.C. March 5, 1991 Prepared Statement of Mr. Tracey Gray Vice President of Marketing for the Government Systems Division US Sprint Communications Company Limited Partnership INTRODUCTION Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. I am Tracey Gray, Vice President of Marketing for the Government Systems Division at US Sprint. I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you on S.272, the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991. As you know, US Sprint is the third largest telecommunications carrier in the United States today - and the only all fiber, fully digital network. US Sprint serves 90% of the Fortune 500 U.S. companies with voice, data, and video services, and we offer telecommunications services to 153 countries around the world. My division, the Government Systems Division, is proud to serve over 500,000 government employees at 35 agencies under the FTS 2000 contract. In addition to FTS 2000, we are responsible for all business relations and opportunities with the federal government. This includes evaluating and assessing the risks and opportunities with emerging technologies and applications in telecommunication network solutions. NREN APPLICATIONS I would like to talk with you today about NREN, the National Research and Education Network -- one component of the High Performance Computing initiative. Mr. Chairman, the operative word in that sentence is Network. High performance networking should share equal billing with high performance computing. US Sprint does not build supercomputers; we do not maintain or operate an information infrastructure of databases; we do not develop computer software tools or train supercomputer hardware or software engineers. US Sprint does provide telecommunications services -- based on state-of-the-art, fiber technology and advanced network architectures. Fiber technology will be the network infrastructure that supports the computing hardware necessary to solve the Grand Challenges. This future network platform will allow researchers to establish National Collaboratories among our nation's laboratories and university research centers that will solve the Grand Challenge problems such as global warming, the identification of new superconduction materials, and the mysteries of cancer causing genes. While the Grand Challenge problems certainly require our attention, US Sprint appreciates the Committee's understanding that industry related problems exist that can benefit from the application of high performance computing. This Committee's 1990 report on S.1067 rightly noted that a supercomputer model helped Boeing design an 737 airplane that was 30% more efficient. The petroleum industry benefited when Arco used a Cray supercomputer to increase oil production at its Prudhoe Bay field, resulting in a two billion dollar profit for the company. An Alcoa supercomputer model reduced the amount of aluminum needed for its soda cans by 10%, resulting in transportation and production savings. Mr. Gore, your January 24 statement noted that Ford's engineers can simulate automobile crash tests using supercomputers for a fraction of the cost of conducting real life experiments. Each of these industry applications of supercomputing benefits the American consumer and the national interest through greater efficiencies, higher quality products, increased cost savings, and improved productivity. But let's not focus solely on supercomputers and connecting supercomputers. Other research and engineering applications require high speed networking, and by bringing other applications on to this network, we can increase scale economies that could justify investments in multi-gigabit networks. For example, medical doctors are confronting a problem where technology produces greater diagnostic capability, yet there are fewer experts to interpret the data. The solution is teleradiology -- the process of digitizing and transmitting medical images to distant locations - which allows the nation's top radiologists to access key medical imaging from virtually anywhere in the United States in seconds. Today, US Sprint's network can transmit diagnostic quality images in approximately 37 seconds using multiple 56 kilobit per second lines. The same image would take up to an hour and a half to transmit over a traditional analog network using 9600 bits per second. Tomorrow's technology will allow real time full motion imaging and require bandwidths substantially greater than 45 megabits per second, the highest speeds available today. A radiologist at a distant location will be able to watch fetuses move and hearts beat, and provide immediate diagnostic feedback. High speed networks are required for real-time image transfers because video compression greater than 2.5:1 is destructive to the image's clarity. Medical imaging is one of many high performance networking applications. Computer Aided Design/Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) is another. American industry will remain strong, if they have the best communication tool to complete their work. Interactive CAD/CAM will allow industry to work more quickly and efficiently, allowing widely dispersed engineers to participate in the design process without exchanging roomfuls of paper. NREN TECHNOLOGY The question posed by the legislation, however, is how supercomputers can be made accessible to more users. And the answer is the development of supernetworks with multi-gigabit capacity - or NREN. US Sprint is working with developments that would support the NREN objectives. We are developing plans for a broadband test bed akin to those established under the leadership of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRl). US Sprint is a partner in a of a Midwest coalition that is working with DARPA to develop a network concept plan for a terrestrial, fly- over imaging application for the Department of the Army's Future Battle Lab. The terrestrial, fly-over project would take satellite pictures and convert them into computer-developed, "three dimensional" landscapes that would allow the user to "fly over" or "walk through" the terrain. Generals could "see" a battlefield without sending out scouts! Additionally, US Sprint has recently become an international vendor for NSFNET providing links to research networks in France and Sweden, and we now serve on NSF's Federal Networking Advisory Committee to the Federal Networking Council. Although many advances are being made towards the development of the systems necessary for gigabit networks, many hurdles remain. The fundamental building block required for gigabit networks exists today. Fiber optic cables with ample bandwidth to support multi- gigabit and higher transmission speeds criss-cross our country. US Sprint's all fiber optic network operates today with backbone speed of 1.7 Gbps. We are currently testing 2.4 Gbps optic equipment in our labs for installation on our high capacity routes next year. Our transmission equipment vendors are developing the next generation of optic systems with transmission speeds of 9.6Gbps. Switching platforms also continue to advance with cell relay technology. Many believe that cell relay switching best supports the bandwidth-on-demand services essential to high speed networks. Small, non-standard cell relay switches capable of switching traffic at 150 Mops are on the market today. International standards for cell relay are advancing rapidly, with many projected for completion by 1992. Nonetheless, difficult network design problems remain in cell relay technology such as traffic congestion and routing. American researchers are working toward solutions to these problems. To achieve the NREN goals, compatible telecommunication and computer standards must be written for the signaling, operation, administration and management of high speed networks. These network support systems are as important to the implementation of the NREN as the transmission and switching systems. The development of standards for these support systems requires careful consideration and must parallel the evolution of gigabit technologies. US SPRINT POSITION Mr. Chairman, US Sprint fully supports the intent of the High Performance Computing initiative. We are convinced that without government seed money, supercomputer networking will be slow to mature. Let me share two related thoughts with you, however, about the legislation and the implementation of the legislation pertaining to network applications and to the Committee's intent to phase the NREN into commercial operation. First, with respect to network applications, to speed the development of high speed networks, US Sprint recommends broadening the scope of the legislation to include a variety of high speed networking applications. I have briefly described two applications, not requiring supercomputers, that would serve pressing, existing needs. Providing funds for applications research could stimulate many more ideas within the research community. Each of these application ideas could support a new group of users, further extending the benefits of high speed networking to society. With applications as the driver, high speed networks will grow in scale and ubiquity throughout the country. My second point, and one that I think is a concern to the Committee as well, pertains to the phase-in to commercial operation, one of the objectives to be realized by the network. Although the bill includes language that the NREN be "phased into commercial operation as commercial networks can meet the networking needs of American researchers and educators," there is no path--given the current development of the NSFNET--that gets us from here to there. In fact, the government is creating a private--a dedicated-- telecommunications infrastructure that parallels the commercial, public networks operating in the U.S. today. Rather than duplicate commercial facilities with a government owned and operated telecommunications system, we suggest that the NREN be established through public network services--where the government's networking requirements are combined with the public's requirements in the development of commercial networks. Otherwise, it is not clear how we will ever "phase" from a dedicated U.S. government network to commercial networks. With a public network service, industry would develop, own, and operate the facilities to provide gigabit capability and offer that capability as a service to the Government and other industry users. In this environment, users are not obligated to full time, dedicated service, but are oriented to a preferred, bandwidth-on-demand scenario. A public, high speed network service would be positioned much like today's public, long distance or virtual private networking services. Users only pay when they use the service. By evolving NREN as a public network service, the government also takes advantage of existing network platforms. US Sprint for example, offers a fully deployed, ubiquitous, network service. We fully integrate today's telecommunication requirements combining voice, data, and video services with a single network platform. . US Sprint integrates the management, operation, and administration of that network into a single organization. NREN can only duplicate public network features like these at tremendous cost. By leveraging the existing infrastructure of public networks, the government can realize the development of a more robust NREN, sooner, and at less cost. RECOMMENDATIONS In short, Mr. Chairman, US Sprint recommends that the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 address two issues. First, the bill should authorize the funding of academic research for application s requiring high speed network capacity in addition to connecting supercomputers. As noted above, sophisticated medical imaging requires higher speed networks. Similar applications that require high speed networking should be funded under this initiative. US Sprint believe that funding this type of research will stimulate additional high speed network applications further justifying the development of the network. Second, the Committee should ensure that the design of the NREN does not lead to a government owned and operated network. NREN should be developed to share the gigabit capacity of existing public networks and enjoy the advantages that public network operators bring to their commercial customers. NREN could well operate as a virtual private network on an existing public network, but it should not operate as a separate network. Mr. Chairman, US Sprint sees the NREN developing more fully, more economically, and more quickly if it were to be developed as a shared, or public, network. We appreciate the opportunity to address the Committee. I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Summary Statement Tracey Gray, Vice President of Marketing Government Systems Division US Sprint fully supports the intent of the High Performance Computing initiative. We are convinced that without government seed money, high performance computing and high performance networking will be slow to mature. US Sprint believes that the Committee should take two steps to help realize its goal of establishing a multi gigabit network by 1996. First, the Committee, in its bill, should authorize the funding of academic research that requires high performance networking without requiring, necessarily, high performance computing. We advocate this position because we are convinced that unless additional applications for high speed networking are developed, industry will not be able to justify the costs of developing multi- gigabit networks devoted to linking supercomputers. Second, US Sprint believes that the Committee should ensure that the NREN, the National Research and Education Network, is not established as a government owned and operated, dedicated network. Rather, we believe that the NREN should be developed as a public network service to take full advantage of the near and long term technical features and administrative support systems developed by public network providers. In our mind, the industry/government partnership envisioned by the legislation will only come to fruition if we marry our financial and technical resources in the development of shared, public networks instead of pursuing the development of exclusive, private networks. Moreover, unless NREN develops as a shared resource, we cannot envision how NREN will be phased into commercial operation as the legislation anticipates. US Sprint commends the Committee's foresight and initiatives with respect to high performance computing and high performance networking. We look forward to lending our expertise and resources to help in meeting the Committee's legislative goals. STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNEST P. HOLLINGS HEARING ON S. 272, THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ACT TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1991 I am a cosponsor of S. 272, the High-Performance Computing Act, because this is the kind of far-sighted legislation that should be a priority here in the Senate. S. 272 addresses the long-term economic, educational, and national security needs of this country. We cannot just focus on the problems of today; we need to find solutions to the problems of tomorrow as well. The bill we are considering today will accelerate the development of new technology and, just as importantly, speed up the application of that new technology. By creating a National Research and Education Network (NREN), this bill will link our university labs to labs and factories in the private sector so they can more effectively use the research done by university researchers. Today the flow of information is truly global; the results of research done at MIT now may be applied in a laboratory somewhere else tomorrow. The NREN would help us take advantage of that research. If our best research scientists are in constant, instantaneous communication, through high-speed computer networks, with the engineers and product designers in American industry, we have a huge competitive edge. The NREN and high-speed, commercial networks based on NREN technology will not develop spontaneously. Federal leadership and Federal investment are needed to spur the private sector to develop these networks. S. 272 provides for this spur. It is an important step toward exploiting the full potential of fiber optics in our national telecommunications system. The NREN and high-speed fiber optic networks are particularly important to states like South Carolina. In South Carolina, we have many colleges and universities which lack the resources available at other research universities. The NREN will provide them with access to facilities presently available only at places like Caltech and Harvard. With the NREN, a researcher at the University of South Carolina would have access to very fastest supercomputers available anywhere. A researcher at Clemson would be able to connect to a radio telescope halfway across the country and collect data and compare his or her results with colleagues around the country. The applications of the NREN in education are even more exciting. With access to the NREN and the "Digital Libraries" of electronic information connected to it, at the smallest colleges in South Carolina, and many high schools, students would be able to access more information from their computer keyboard than they could find in their school libraries. The NREN would broaden the horizons of students at small colleges, two-year technical colleges, historically black colleges -- at every college in South Carolina. This is important legislation, and I look forward to working with Senator Gore and others on the Commerce Committee on the bill. TESTIMONY BY DR. MALVIN H. KALOS DIRECTOR, CORNELL THEORY CENTER TO THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SPACE HEARINGS ON S. 272, THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ACT OF 1991 TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1991 Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege to be invited to comment on the "High Performance Computing Act of 1991" in the company of such a distinguished group of representatives of government, industry, and academia. I am Malvin H. Kalos, Director of the Cornell Theory Center, and a professor of physics at Cornell University. The Theory Center is an interdisciplinary research unit of Cornell University, dedicated to the advancement and exploitation of high performance computing and networking for science, engineering, and industrial productivity. As you know, the Theory Center is one of the National Supercomputer Centers supported by the National Science Foundation. The Center also receives support from the State of New York, and from industry. My career spans 40 years of work with computers as a tool in physics and engineering. I have worked in universities, industry, and as a consultant to the Los Alamos, Livermore, and Oak Ridge national laboratories in research devoted to the application of high performance computing to further their missions. We are witnessing a profound transformation of our scientific and engineering cultures brought about by the advent and adoption of high-performance computing and communications as part of our technological society. The changes, some of which we see now, some of which we easily surmise, and some of which we can only guess at, have had and will continue to have wide-reaching benefits. Our economic well-being and the quality of our lives will be immeasurably improved. I salute the foresight and leadership of the authors and cosponsors of this Bill, and the Administration. Senator Gore, Congressmen Hollings and Brown, and the President all understand the deep and positive implications for our future. We are also grateful for the support of Congressmen Boehlert and McHugh whose backing of our efforts at Cornell and for the entire program has been very strong. The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. Bromley, has done essential work in translating the ideas into effective policy. The Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET) has, for the first time, brought unity into the Federal approach to high-performance computing. This is a well designed, well integrated program that shows good balance between the need to exploit advancing supercomputing technology, the need for very high performance networking, and the need to bring these new tools to the widest possible community through research and education. I will begin with some historical and philosophical remarks about science, using the history of physics, which I know best. Science is not a dry collection of disconnected facts, however interesting. The essence of science is the dynamic network of interconnections between facts. For a scientist, making a connection never perceived before can be the highlight of a career; the more distant the connection, the more it is valued. Our aim is to connect all we know in a seamless web of understanding. Historically, the greatest contribution of the greatest scientists have been such connections: Newton's between the fall of an apple and the motion of the Moon and planets; Maxwell's between the phenomena of electricity, magnetism, and the propagation of light; Einstein's leap of understanding connecting quanta of light and the photoelectric effect. These connections must be, to the greatest extent possible, mathematical and quantitative, not merely verbal or qualitative. Making these connections in a quantitative way remains at the heart of pure science today, but it has become harder as we try to probe into more and more complex phenomena, phenomena that cannot be analyzed by the mathematical tools at our disposal. There are many important examples in science that shed light on this paradigm. Chemistry is one of our most important sciences, one that contributes enormously to our grasp of the physical world and one whose applications lie at the core of our understanding of materials we use, wear, and eat, and of our health. The fundamental understanding of chemistry lies in quantum mechanics and electricity, well understood since the 1930s. Yet the translation of that scientific understanding into quantitative knowledge about chemical materials and processes- - polymers, chemical catalysis, drugs both harmful and healing, is very far from complete. Quite properly, chemistry is still largely an experimental science. But the power of modern supercomputers is transforming the face of chemistry at every level. We are coming to understand how electrons cooperate to bind atoms into molecules, molecules into larger structures, and to elucidate their structural, dynamic, and biological effects. However, extraordinary numerical precision, which can only be attained by very powerful supercomputers, is required for this vital work. Many other areas of science involve this kind of systematic connection among different phenomena at different scales of length or energy, including biology and medicine, the physics of materials, and astrophysics. The role of computation in linking disparate scientific fields is not a contemporary development. The early evolution of modem computers was dominated in the 1940s and 1950s by John von Neumann, who was also a great mathematician. He designed computers so that the very difficult questions that underlie such scientific and engineering problems as fluid flow could be explored and understood. Only later was it recognized that computers were also important business tools. The essential role of computers in science and engineering were well appreciated by many groups in the United States, including the national laboratories, and their use contributed very much to the development of nuclear weapons, fusion technology, and the design of aircraft. The use of computers in academic science and engineering evolved more slowly, partly because of the failure of many to see the possibilities, partly because the policies of the Federal government at the time discouraged scientists from participating fully. My own career was impacted negatively by these policies. It was the leadership of a few scientists, notably Dr. Kenneth Wilson, who created the modern climate of respect for the accomplishments and possibilities of computational science in the future of our country. The constructive contributions of the Congress and the National Science Foundation in creating the National Supercomputer Centers are noteworthy. That creation was, in a profound sense, the mark of the entry by the mainstream of American research into the era of computational science at the heart of science and engineering. It is also important to note that computational science is now an essential tool in experimental science as it is currently practised. The most advanced scientific instruments, optical and radio telescopes, particle accelerators, and computers themselves are studied, designed, optimized, and verified with computer simulation. Data collection is usually automated with the help of computers, and the reduction to comprehensible data sets and pictures may involve enormous computations. Exchange of large data sets and the cooperative work in understanding them will require very large computations and very heavy use of future high capacity data networks. Finally, in many cases, even reduced data are incomprehensible except when studied in the light of complex theories that can be understood only by simulation. Now the entire scientific and engineering community of the country has the opportunity to exploit these new tools. Many researchers are. Important new scientific discoveries are being made. New ideas and connections are seen everywhere. More important, students and young scientists, who are always the very heart of any important scientific change, are involved. They are coming to understand the techniques, the promise, and the limitations of computational science. Their knowledge and its applications are the most important products of our efforts, and they will carry the message to the rest of our society and to the future. It is they who will have the most direct impact upon industry in the United States. The science made possible throughout the nation by the resources of the Theory Center spans all scales of length and energy from the galactic through the planetary through the earth's crust, the behavior of man-made structures, of materials at the microscopic level, to the physics of elementary particles. From another perspective, it spans the traditional disciplines of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, medicine, all fields of engineering, and agriculture and veterinary medicine. Although I describe research at or made possible by the Theory Center, the other National Centers, at San Diego, Champaign-Urbana, and at Pittsburgh, can easily list an equally impressive set of accomplishments in pure and multidisciplinary science. It is perhaps unfair to cite a few at the expense of so many others, but the work of Stuart Shapiro and Saul Teukolsky on fluids and fields in general relativity is outstanding and has been recognized by a significant prize, the Forefronts of Large-Scale Computation Award. Their research comprises both the development of mathematical and numerical methods for the exploration of astrophysical and cosmological phenomena and the use of these methods to develop quantitative understanding of the formation of black holes and the characteristics of gravitational radiation. John Dawson of UCLA uses the Theory Center resources to study the unexpected results of the Active Magnetic Particle Tracer Explorer experiments. In these, barium and lithium were injected into the earth's magnetosphere, creating, in effect, an artificial comet. The observations contradicted existing theories and simulations. Dawson and Ross Bollens constructed a hybrid theory and simulation that models the observed effect. Henry Krakauer of the College of William and Mary uses a modern "density functional" theory of electronic structure to examine the nature of the electron-phonon interaction, known to be responsible for low-temperature superconductivity. The aim is to determine its role in high- temperature superconductivity. Work like this is being carried out throughout the world and will require the fastest parallel supercomputers of the future. Having them available to American researchers, including those who are not at major research universities, gives them and American industry a competitive edge. The research of Harold Scheraga and his group at Cornell into the three-dimensional structure of proteins shows an equally broad range of activity: the investigation of the fundamental interactions of the amino acid units with each other and with solvent atoms, the basic computational techniques needed to find the optimal structure, and the biochemistry of proteins. This is research that is particularly well suited to highly parallel computing, and will require, in the long run, the full use of future teraflops machines. Understanding the properties of the earth's crust is the subject of the research of Larry Brown and the Consortium for Continental Reflection Profiling (COCORP). This national group uses the supercomputers to reduce, display, and interpret the huge data set that is gathered by seismic probing (to 30krn or more) of the continental crust. I cited earlier the fundamental importance of scientific computing in enabling the connections among different phenomena within scientific disciplines. Even more important is its role in permitting quantitative connections among different disciplines, that is, in supporting multidisciplinary research. Every one of the large problems that confront our society, and to whose solutions we expect science to contribute, is in some sense a multidisciplinary problem. For example, issues of the environment involve many sciences -- chemistry, physics, engineering, fluid flow, biology, and materials. Medicine is equally demanding in its call upon diverse science. As we have indicated, biochemistry and its relations to chemistry and physics plays a central role in medicine. But other areas are important as well. As part of my oral presentation, I will show a video of a supercomputing study of the uses of ultrasound in the treatment of eye tumors. The building of modem prosthetic devices uses many resources of computation, from the reduction of CAT scans to the computational optimization of the mechanical properties of the devices. Understanding blood flow in the heart requires a mastery of fluid dynamics of viscous media plus the knowledge of the elastic properties of the heart and its valves. Bringing the knowledge from these fields together to make quantitative predictions about the effects of some technological or regulatory proposal is a difficult undertaking, one that is utterly impossible without the use of computational modeling on high- performance computers. Computational modeling is the indispensable natural language of quantitative multidisciplinary research. An outstanding example of such work is that by Greg McRae of Carnegie Mellon University. He uses supercomputers and supercomputer-based visualization to explain from basic chemistry, fluid mechanics, meteorology, and engineering the scientific effect that underlie the development of air pollution in the Los Angeles Basin, and the probable effects of fuel changes and regulatory procedures. His results have been used to influence regulatory policy constructively. The Global Basins Research Network (GBRN), a consortium directed by Larry Cathles of the Geology Department of Cornell University and by Roger Anderson of Columbia University's Lamont-Dougherty Laboratory and which includes eight academic and 11 industrial partners, has as its goal the multidisciplinary understanding of the chemical, physical, and mechanical processes that occur in a sedimentary basin such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico below Louisiana. They have assembled a composite database of the observations of the basin and are using computational modeling to explain the data. But simply the collection and display in a coherent visual way has led to new and deeper understanding of the geology. The outcome of this understanding is very likely to improve oil recovery world-wide. I will also show a video clip of a visualization of the data set that was prepared jointly by the Theory Center and the GBRN. It is important to note that this research covers a wide range of partners, geographically dispersed, and the that the medium of information exchange is usually visual. High- performance networking is essential to the GBRN and to similar scientific enterprises. Another important development is the establishment at Cornell of the Xerox Design Research Institute, with the participation of the Theory Center, the Computer Science Department, and the School of Engineering. Directed by Gregory Zack of Xerox, and involving researchers from Xerox centers nationwide, the aim of the Institute, quite simply, is to improve Xerox's ability to bring better products more quickly to market. The techniques are those of computational and computer science. A vital aspect of the research is the development of methods whereby the geographically separate centers can effectively collaborate. Again, high-performance networking is key. As our reach extends, the necessary partners required to carry out important collaborative research will rarely be found at one institution or even in one part of the country. Essential experimental devices or data bases may exist anywhere. Rapid, concurrent access is essential, and at higher demands in bandwidth. The NREN is necessary for the full growth and exploitation of the scientific, technological, and educational implications of computational science. The GBRN and Xerox examples indicate how the greatest potential is for industrial use. The supercomputing community will soon find itself at a major crossroads -- where the increases in performance needed for the fulfillment of our scientific mandate will demand parallel architectures. To exploit these new machines, a major retooling of software and algorithms will have to take place. This is not a trivial undertaking, yet it must be started very soon if we are to make progress on the Grand Challenge problems in the mid-1990s. The High-Performance Computing and Communications program will offer us an essential opportunity to bridge the gap between today's high performance vector machines and tomorrow's highly parallel systems. I have emphasized how science and its application to societal problems are communal activities, activities that involve, more or less directly, the entire scientific community. Bringing to bear the transformation made possible by computational science in the most complete and positive way requires that its techniques and strategies be learned, used, and shared by the widest possible group of researchers and educators. That means advancing the art, acquiring the best and most powerful tools of hardware, software, and algorithms, and coupling the community in the tightest possible ways. The "High-Performance Computing Act of 1991" is a vital step in that direction. Statement by DONALD N. LANGENBERG Chancellor, The University of Maryland System Before the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation United States Senate March 5, 1991 Donald N. Langenberg is Chancellor of the University of Maryland System. With a doctorate in physics, Dr. Langenberg has held faculty and administrative positions at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He served as Acting and Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. He chaired the panel of the NAS/NAE/IOM Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy that authored the 1989 report, Information Technology and the Conduct of Research: The User's View. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for your invitation to testify on S. 272, the High- Performance Computing Act of 1991. I am Donald Langenberg, Chancellor of the University of Maryland System. My view of the issues addressed by this bill has naturally been shaped by my own experience. I am, or was, an experimental solid state physicisL I have served as Deputy Director and as Acting Director of the National Science Foundation. I am currently CEO of an eleven-campus state university system, Chairman of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Chairman of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. These affiliations account for some of my biases, but most are a result of my service as chair of a National Research Council panel that wrote a 1989 report entitled Information Technology and the Conduct of Research: The User's View. My service on the panel convinced me that the current breathtaking rate of change in information technology will inevitably force historic changes in our institutions for managing information. Nowhere is this more evident than in the research and education communities that both create important new developments in information technology, and are often bellwethers in its use. It is the viewpoint of these communities that I will try to represent this afternoon. Information is the fundamental stuff of both research and education. Research and education are about the creation of information and its transformation into knowledge and understanding, for our individual and collective benefit. Modern information technology has presented us with a challenge of unprecedented scale. The Library of Congress contains about 10 terabytes of information. It took us over two centuries to collect ii It's stored nearby in an impressive collection of expensive real estate. Medical imaging machines nowadays produce that much information every week or so. The particle detectors of the Superconducting Super Collider will one day engulf their designers with that much information every few seconds. NASA already has 1.2 million magnetic tapes containing data from past missions, and its archives are growing by about one Library of Congress every year. In ten years, if all goes according to plan, NASA will be piling up about fifty Libraries of Congress each year. Everywhere one looks, similar gushers of information exist or are in prospect. Fortunately, modern information technology also promises to give us the means to meet this challenge. Transforming promise into reality, however, will take time, skill, resources, and, above all, wisdom. In my opinion, S. 272 represents a major contribution to that transformation. I strongly support its passage into law. Let me make a few points related to the work of our NRC panel. 1. The Panel found that there exist significant technical, financial, behavioral, and infrastructural impediments to the widespread use of information technology in research. Though the Panel's charge was confined to research, I believe the same impediments exist with respect to education. The Panel made three main recommendations and a host of subrecommendations for dealing with these impediments. S. 272 responds to most of them. 2. One of the Panel's three principal recommendations was that, "the institutions supporting the nation's researchers, led by the federal government, should develop an interconnected national information technology network for use by all qualified researchers." S. 272's National Research and Education Network (NREN) responds directly to the need reflected in this recommendation, and also to the very important collateral need of the educational sector. In my judgment, NREN will revolutionize both research and education (in an evolutionary way, of course). 3. When one thinks of what NREN might do for education, one thinks first of the education of scientists and engineers, then perhaps of the incredible potential inherent in linking NREN to every elementary school, secondary school, public library, and museum in the country. There is another educational need of utmost importance. I believe that part of the challenge we face is the creation of an entirely new kind of institutional infrastructure for managing the new information technology, led and supported by a new breed of information professionals. The latter may bear some resemblance to librarians, or to computer scientists, or to publishers. Whatever they might be, we need to create schools for training them and institutions within which they can function. That means educational and institutional innovation of a kind S. 272 appears well designed to foster. 4. The most important words in the title of our panel report reflect our most important observation. They are "the user's view." In simple terms, the Panel concluded that the development of information technology and its applications in the conduct of research (and, I would add here, education) are far too important to be left to the experts. The Panel cautioned that planning and development should be guided by users of information technology, both current and prospective, Dot by information specialists, information scientists, information technologists, or local, national, and international policymakers. It may not invariably be true that "the customer is always right," but institutions that create technology or make policy without a clear understanding and appreciation of the real needs of their clients and constituents risk making serious and expensive blunders. S. 272 calls for the advice of users in the development of the National Research and Education Network I especially applaud this provision. 5. In my preface to our panel's report, I wrote: "I share with many researchers a strong belief that much of the power of science (whether practiced by scientists, engineers, or clinical researchers) derives from the steadfast commitment to free and unfettered communication of information and knowledge. This principle has been part of the ethos of the global research community for centuries, and has served it and the rest of humanity well. If asked to distill one key insight from my service on this panel, I would respond with the assertion that information technology is of truly enormous importance to the research community, and hence to all humanity, precisely because it has the potential to enhance communication of information and knowledge within that community by orders of magnitude. We can now only dimly perceive what the consequences of that fact may be. That there is a revolution occurring in the creation and dissemination of information, knowledge, and ultimately, understanding is clear to me. It is also clear to me that it is critically important to maintain our commitment to free and unfettered communication as we explore the uses of information technology in the conduct of research." What I asserted there about research, I would assert now about education. If I am right, then by far the most profoundly important consequence of the creation of NREN will not be the expedition of research or the improvement of next year's balance of trade. It will be the fundamental democratization of all the world's knowledge. That means placing the accumulated intellectual wealth of centuries at the beck and call of every man, woman, and child. What that might mean can only be guessed, but let me reminisce for a moment. I grew up in a small town on the Great Plains. In that town was a Carnegie Library, one of hundreds Andrew Carnegie endowed across the nation. That modest building and the equally modest collection it housed opened the world to me. I have been grateful to the Pittsburgh steelmaker ever since. What if I had had direct personal access to the Library of Congress, the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Deutsches Museum, all in the course of a summer afternoon in North Dakota? Imagine! My point here is that there is an overriding public interest in NREN and in the rest of the provisions of S. 272, an interest that transcends research and its industrial applications, or issues of governance and the timetable for commercialization. We have an opportunity here for an American achievement of truly Jeffersonian proportions. Let's not blow it! 6. Finally, I note with approval that S. 272 identifies the National Science Foundation as the lead agency for the development of NREN. The choice is wise, I think NSF has a demonstrated capacity to manage large complex technical operations. Unlike other S&T agencies, NSF's focus is not on some "mission," but on its "users," i.e., its client science and engineering communities. And, perhaps most important, alone among federal agencies NSF bears responsibility for the support of research across the full spectrum of scientific and engineering disciplines, and for the training of those who perform the research, and for the general education in science and technology of everybody else. You will have gathered that I have considerable enthusiasm for S. 272. I do! I urge you and your colleagues to enact it into law. Testimony of David C. Nagel, Ph.D. Vice President, Advanced Technology Apple Computer, Inc Government Affairs Office 1550 M Street, N.W., Suite 1000 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 872-6260 On Behalf of the Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP) Before the Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee S.272 THE HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ACT OF 1991 March 5, 1991 Introduction Apple Computer, Inc. and the other members of the Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP) are very appreciative for the opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee on the issue of high performance computing. As several of us have said in previous appearances before this subcommittee, the health of the U.S. computer industry is inextricably tied to the future health of the nation as a global economic power. Although the U.S. has been for decades preeminent in both the development of the most advanced computer technology in the world and in the capture of the largest share of the global computing systems market, that leadership is being steadily eroded by our global competitors. In purely economic terms, the U.S. computer systems industry plays a vital role in the U.S. economy. In 1989, for example, our industry exported more than $22B in computer equipment alone, or more than 6% of total U.S. exports that year. Our industry employs almost 600,000 workers in the U.S. When we look beyond the immediate economic picture and into the future, few would argue with the belief that the health of the computer systems industry will serve as a bellwether to the overall health and leadership of the U.S. as a global economic and industrial power. It is difficult to think of significant technical advances over the past two decades in any segment of the economy that have not relied on computer systems. The computer systems industry is clearly a building block for other industries. Computer systems products are necessary and critical components of virtually all modem manufacturing and service industries and development and operation of most of the sophisticated weapons systems in the U.S. arsenal would be impossible without computer systems and electronic components. In the fall of 1989, the eleven largest computer systems companies in the U.S. formed the Computer Systems Policy Project to address technology and trade policy from the computer systems industry perspective. As a reflection of the seriousness with which the industry views the future of computer technology in the U.S., the CSPP is an association of the Chief Executives of Apple, Hewlett- Packard, Compaq, Cray, IBM, Control Data, Digital Equipment, NCR, Sun Microsystems, Tandem and Unisys. One of the major goals in forming the CSPP was to provide the industry and policy makers in Washington, D.C. the data and perspective necessary to the development of effective, long-range policies both in the development of technology and in the improvement of our trade position globally. Each of the member companies - including the CEO's, Chief Technologists, and supporting staff - has made a significant commitment to this project over the past year and a half. CSPP began its study more than a year ago with an internal look at the health of our industry including: an assessment of the technologies that are critical to computer systems; an assessment of how the United States is doing with these technologies compared to our foreign competitors; and a prognosis for U.S. industry performance into the future. In summary, the results of this initial analysis were mixed. While the U.S. computer systems industry still today is the strongest in the world (both in terms of technology leadership and overall market share), our lead is diminishing rapidly by almost all the measures we examined. In addition, leading indicators of future health provide little cause for optimism. In 1983, U.S. companies held a 83% share of the world market of computer systems (including software). Between 1983 and 1989, our share of the worldwide market declined from 83% to 61%. During this same period, Japan's share rose from 8% to 22% and Europe's share grew from 10% to 15%. Figure 1 shows a similar decline in our share of the world market for computer hardware. Here the U.S. went from supplying well more than half of the world's supply of computer equipment to supplying less than our primary competitors, the Europeans and Japanese. More troubling, the computer systems industry went from a significantly positive contribution to the U.S. trade balance all throughout the 1980's to a position in 1990 where our imports almost exactly balance our exports (Figure 2). We note that while the U.S.ratio of exports to imports moved steadily downward over the past decade, Japan even more dramatically has increased its export/import ratio from around 2 in 1980 to more than 6 at the end of the 1980's. Finally, in the category of leading indicators, the U.S. is failing significantly in the competition for computer systems patents. Whereas in 1978, the U.S. received over 60% of all computer systems patents, by 1988 we were being granted new U.S. patents only at the rate of 40% of the total. In the aggregate, Japanese industry was awarded nearly as many patents in the U.S. as were domestic manufacturers. Figure 3 illustrates these trends. While these findings are clearly troubling, the members of CSPP recognize that the primary burden for staying competitive in the global marketplace rests squarely with U.S. industry. Thus, to begin our internal assessment, we examined our own investment levels and competitive positions in the key technologies critical to success in our highly competitive and highly technical business. We identified, for example, 16 critical pre-competitive generic technologies, and after significant analysis by the chief technologists of the CSPP, concluded that the U.S. still leads the world in half of these (data-base systems; processor architecture; human interface; visualization; operating systems; software engineering; application technology). Seven of the eight technologies for which the U.S. has a lead worldwide are software intensive. We concluded also that the U.S. lags the world in several critical technologies (displays; hard copy technology; manufacturing technology; semiconductor fabrication; electronic packaging). For the remainder (networks and communication; storage, microelectronics; fiberoptics) a once solid lead is diminishing. In contrast to the technologies for which the U.S. holds a lead, the lagging technologies are mostly capital-intensive. The chief technologists of the CSPP also concluded that the prognosis for leadership in these technologies over the next five years is that, without positive action, the U.S. position will erode further in all 16 technology areas. It is with this perspective that the CSPP began taking a closer look at what might be done to mitigate these negative trends. The CSPP supplemented its technology assessment with a review of the role of government investment in R&D in the U.S. and other countries (Figures 4 through 9) We came to some fundamental conclusions. First, the overall level of R&D spending in the U.S. at $135B in 1989 is substantial by any measure, greater than Japan and the European Community by significant margins (Fig. 5). The overall investment is split almost evenly between industry ($70B) and government ($65.8B). The computer systems industry spends 21% of private sector R&D, or about 10% of the total national investment in R&D (Fig. 6a). The investment of the computer industry in 1989 - more than $18B - is more than that of any other industrial sector and represents a 26% increase over the amount we spent in 1988, during a period when other industrial sectors were reducing their R&D spending. In contrast to the level of investment of private industry, the U.S. government only invested about 2% of its R&D portfolio in generic technologies related directly to the computer industry (Fig. 6b). If we look at the electronics industry as a whole, about 30% of private R&D was spent by the electronics industry while the government invested only 6% of its R&D budget in electronics research. In general, the ratio of private to government R&D spending seems out of proportion relative to other industrial sectors (e.g. aerospace, health care, etc.). While we found that government spending on R&D has increased significantly in absolute levels over the past 25 years, defense- related spending has consumed a greater and greater share, increasing from a historical share of 50% to a high of 70% in 1987. It has remained at about the level of two-thirds of all government R&D spending since that time (Fig. 7). By contrast, the Japanese government allocates only 4% of its R&D budget to defense research (Fig. 8). Selected European countries spend an average of 30% of their government research budgets on defense. Among our principal competitors, only the government of France spends a greater percentage of its GNP on total R&D than does the U.S. government (Fig. 9). In our initial "Critical Technologies Report", the CSPP identified R&D as one of the most significant factors in determining the success of the industry's performance in 15 of 16 critical technologies. It is therefore not surprising that the computer systems industry performs 21% of private sector R&D and 10% of the total national R&D effort. We recognize that this investment is our lifeblood. Computer industry spending on R&D has increased at a much faster rate than government spending over the last two decades, a practice that has been required to keep pace with rapidly changing commercial demands and increasing levels of international competition. How should the government and industry R&D investments be split to maximize the benefits to U.S. industry and the U.S. economy? First, investment in generic, pre-competitive technologies such as electronics, materials and information technologies is important because these are the building blocks for advancements in the computer industry. Our assessment of the existing Federal research effort reveals that the federal R&D investment is contributing disproportionately little to these generic, pre-competitive technology developments. The federal R&D budget is not focused in ways needed to enhance and preserve our economic competitiveness given the rapid pace of innovation and the R&D practices by other countries. We acknowledge that the degrees of success of the various European (ESPRIT, BRITE, EURAM) and Japanese (5th Generation Computer Project, Super-Sigma Project, an advanced telecommunications research institute, etc.) research projects are not necessarily directly related to the absolute amount of government spending. Rather, we believe that the relative success of the Japanese projects (as reflected in the competitive position of Japanese industry) illustrates the benefits of close cooperation between the private and public sectors and of well-managed, focused efforts for advanced technology projects. Moreover, while in the past, defense R&D was a major source of technological advancement in the U.S. and the computer industry in particular benefited from defense research dollars, we believe that today, because of heightened demand for improved commercial products and the accelerating pace of global competition, the private sector is now the primary catalyst for innovation. We have concluded from these analyses that while the total amount of federal R&D spending is probably adequate, it needs to be managed more effectively if the U.S. computer industry is to be made able to compete in the technology areas essential to our future economic health. In short, we believe that federal R&D is not as helpful to the computer industry as it might be. Based on the data and on the strength of our analyses, CSPP has outlined an initial set of technology policy recommendations. We believe that these recommendations provide a strategy for better focusing the federal R&D investment in pre-competitive, generic technologies and that will help the U.S. meet international competitive challenges by increasing industry involvement in federal R&D priority setting. We believe that by working together, industry and government can improve the nation's return on the total R&D investment and can help to meet the international challenges to this country's technological strength. Recommendations for Improvement We believe that the return on public and private investments in R&D can be improved by coordinating research priority setting and by allocating federal research dollars to more closely reflect the private sector's role in developing the general technologies that are key to the nation's economic growth. Increased investment in microelectronics, information technologies, and materials will provide a solid foundation for advancements not only in computer systems but also in aerospace, medical, energy, environmental and virtually every other area of research important to the future of our society. The CSPP believes that government and industry jointly must take the following first steps to improve the effectiveness of R&D spending in the U.S.: - Improve the mechanisms within OMB for reviewing federal R&D spending; - Increase industry input in setting federal R&D priorities to better manage the federal R&D budget; - Work with industry to set federal laboratory priorities to improve the return on the national R&D investment; and - Implement the High Performance Computing Initiative, including a national network capable of bringing the benefits of computing to every institution, household, and school in the nation. CSPP has established three CEO-level working groups to develop specific plans that will improve the economic return on the national R&D investment by: - Improving the industry participation in the federal R&D priority setting and the federal R&D budget review process; - Increasing the degree and effectiveness of interaction between industry and the federal laboratories; and - By implement the High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative. CSPP CEO's, chief technologists, and staff are actively working on development of plans that address these three issues. Once completed, we intend to make the results of these investigations available to policy makers, including members of this Subcommittee. Improving the R&D Budget Review Process CSPP believes that the Administration and Congress must develop a better sense of how its $76B investment is R&D is being spent. To make the distribution of funds more understandable, we urge the Congress and the Administration to develop a comprehensive summary of the federal R&D budget - budget crosscuts - including summaries of agency initiatives related to development of generic technologies. We are pleased that OMB is providing budget summaries in several key areas, including high performance computing, the subject of this bill, and is considering the development of similar information for other important research areas such as materials. We believe that by providing industry perspectives, the effectiveness and usefulness of these budget summaries can be improved. Once such summaries are available, strategies can be more easily developed with industry participation to bolster investments in needed areas or to shift priorities where necessary. This should be done on an ongoing basis. We understand that industry participation in such activities may be problematic because of ethical, regulatory, and legal impediments and have established a CEO-level working group to identify these impediments and to develop recommendations for advisory mechanisms that are consistent with legal and other requirements and that provide the greatest opportunity for industry participation. Increasing Interactions Between Industry and the National Labs The Federal government spends billions each year on R&D in federal labs, three-fifths of which goes to defense programs. CSPP believes that much of that R&D, properly focused, could be substantially more useful to the computer industry than it is today. We believe that the nation's return on the federal lab investment can be enhanced by increasing private sector input into lab activities and by shifting some labs' research priorities to include generic technologies that have commercial potential. CSPP has established a CEO-level working group to recommend ways to improve the federal laboratories' contributions to the national R&D effort, including developing funding mechanisms for joint industry-lab projects of interest to the private sector; by identifying potential and current laboratory research projects and areas that could benefit the computer industry; and by identifying research areas that lend themselves to budget crosscut analysis. The results of this analysis and recommendations will be issued later this year. Implement the High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative Finally, CSPP fully supports and recommends fully funding a national high performance computing and communication R&D program, including implementing, in conjunction with academia and the private sector, a national research and education network. Thus the CSPP strongly supports the goals of S. 272 as well as the Administration's High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Initiative. We believe that these efforts are critical to provide the research infrastructure required to maintain our nation's leadership in basic research and to expand our capability to perform the applied research which leads to commercialization of technology. The CSPP believes that the IIPCC will be instrumental in achievement of national education and work force training goals, an achievement that will be important increasingly to the economic and social health of our nation. CSPP will support this effort through a long-term project to identify possible future applications of a network that will enhance the quality of life and economic competitiveness of the nation. We believe that computer and networking technology can help to solve problems and to realize opportunities in U.S. homes, factories, universities, workplaces, and classrooms. We have established a CEO working group to identify innovative network applications, the technological advances needed to accomplish them, and the best ways to describe the applications benefits to the public. We are working, as well, to acquaint ourselves with the HPCC budget crosscut and with specific agency plans for research and development. Once we complete this survey, we will examine the relevance to the computer industry of the research being conducted as part of the initiative. Later this year, CSPP will provide recommendations to improve federal spending under the initiative. Although we have not yet completed our analyses, CSPP believes that creation of the NREN is an important first step toward realization of what some have termed a national information infrastructure. This national infrastructure would in effect constitute a very high performance electronic highway that will address the needs of business, schools, and individual citizens as well as institutions of research and higher education. With 80 percent of the U.S. economy classified broadly as services-related, the potential user base of such a national infrastructure is immense. We believe that the existence of such an infrastructure would allow the U.S. service economy, including the education component, to operate significantly more efficiently than today. We imagine that users of the national information network will have access to immense digital libraries and databases and that this access will transform both education and commerce. We believe too that health care will be transformed by the existence of a national digital information network. Vast databases encompassing the basic biological sciences (molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics) and applied medical applications such as diagnostic and treatment data will be needed eventually to improve both the quality and efficiency of the U.S. health care delivery system. We recognize and applaud the pioneering role that this subcommittee and its Chairman, Senator Gore, have played in long recognizing the importance of the development of a national information infrastructure, a research and education network, and an effective high performance computing program. The achievement of a true national information infrastructure is an undertaking of very significant complexity. The interim achievement of development of an NREN will allow solutions to be developed to important technical, policy, economic, regulatory, and social problems, solutions that will point the way toward a true national information infrastructure for the nation. Specific Comments About S. 272 In Section 5 of the bill, we especially applaud the provision for a National High Performance Computing Plan and the establishment of a High-Performance Computing Advisory Panel consisting of prominent representatives from industry and academia. These provisions are in keeping with both the spirit and substance of CSPP findings to date and the CSPP stands ready to participate in such an Advisory Panel as needed. We applaud as well the Section 5 provision requiring the Panel to provide the FCCSET with an independent assessment of whether the research and development funded under the High Performance Computing Plan is helping to Maintain United States leadership in computing technology. In Section 6 of the bill, FCCSET is charged with development of the "goals, strategy, and priorities" for an NREN. While we support this provision as an important first step, we believe that some attention should be given as the program progresses to issues which surround development of a true national information infrastructure. For example, agencies could be directed to perform analyses that would identify impediments, regulatory or otherwise, toward achievement of a true national information infrastructure and conduct other studies or research that will lead to solutions to these impediments as experience is gained in the development and operation of NREN. Again, CSPP would welcome the opportunity to contribute to such analyses and otherwise support the achievement of the goals of the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. Conclusions CSPP recognizes that improving U.S. technology policy is a long- term process that cannot be addressed by any one organization, any single set of recommendations, or any given piece of legislation. Improvement of U.S. technology is, nonetheless, an essential process that will require cooperative R&D investments and the partnership of the private sector and the government. Improving U.S. technology requires a long-term commitment and a series of changes by industry and government over time. Whether as independent CEO's or as an industry, the members of the CSPP are committed to and will remain involved in this process. CSPP believes that the high performance computing and communication program will constitute an important cornerstone by improving the harvest of federal R&D investments in computing and other pre-competitive technologies and by enhancing the competitiveness of the U.S. in the increasingly competitive global economy. Supercomputing Network: A Key to U.S. Competitiveness in Industries Based on Life-Sciences Excellence John S. Wold, Ph.D. Executive Director Lilly Research Laboratories Eli Lilly and Company Testimony U.S. Senate, Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee March 5, 1991 I am John S. Wold, an executive director of Lilly Research Laboratories, the research-and-development division of Eli Lilly and Company. Lilly is a global Corporation, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, that applies advances in the life sciences, electronics, and materials sciences to basic human needs -- health care and nutrition. We compete in the pharmaceutical, medical-devices, diagnostic-products, and animal health-products industries. My responsibilities at Lilly include the company's supercomputing program. With me is my colleague, Dr. Riaz Abdulla -- whom you just saw on videotape. Riaz manages this program on a day-to-day basis. I'm indeed pleased to have this opportunity to present my company's views about the importance of a national commitment to supercomputing and to a supercomputing network. I'm sure that this subcommittee has heard -- and will hear much more -- about the underlying technology required to support the evolution of supercomputers and supercomputing networks. It's important, I believe, that you share computing technologists' excitement about their visions of supercomputing systems, algorithms, and networks. But I believe it is just as important for you to share the visions that motivate research-oriented institutions, like Lilly, to invest in supercomputers and to encourage their scientists and engineers to use these systems. It's important for you to hear supercomputer users support S. 272. Today, I'll try to articulate two levels of aspirations we at Lilly have for our supercomputing program: - First, we believe that Lilly scientists will use these powerful new research tools to address fundamental research questions. Answers to these questions will help us develop more-selective, more-specific drugs with greater efficacy and fewer side effects. These new medicines will represent important new products for our company and support high quality, cost-effective health care for tens of millions of people. - Second, we believe that Lilly scientists will use these powerful new research tools to expand the range of fundamental questions they can explore. They may even use these systems to devise entirely new ways of conducting research programs that probe the staggering complexity of the human body. In fact, supercomputing represents a revolution...a new wave...a "paradigm shift" in the development of modern technology. In the years ahead, scientists at Lilly and at other institutions will use this extraordinary research tool to do things that we simply cannot anticipate today. For instance, it's unlikely that pioneers of molecular biology foresaw the applications of recombinant DNA technology that have unfolded in the past I5 years or so. Let's move, however, from the general to the specific. I'd like to discuss supercomputing in the context of one company's decision. making. The investment by Eli Lilly and Company of millions of dollars in supercomputing systems and training was a very basic business decision. We believe that this technology will help us effectively pursue our company's mission and meet its goals in. an ever-more challenging environment. Today, I'll focus on our pharmaceutical business. But many of the following points are also relevant to our other businesses. Long-term success in the research-based pharmaceutical industry depends on one factor: innovation. We must discover and develop new products that address patients' unmet needs. We must discover and develop cost-effective new products that offer economic benefits to patients, payors, and society as a whole. Whenever possible, we must market innovative new products before our competitors do. Innovation has never come easy in this industry. The diseases that afflict our species represent some of the most daunting of all scientific mysteries. Consequently, pharmaceutical R&D has traditionally been a high-risk...complex... time-consuming...and costly enterprise. How risky is pharmaceutical R&D? Scientists generally evaluate thousands of compounds to identify one that is sufficiently promising to merit development. Of every five drug candidates that begin development, only one ultimately proves sufficiently safe and effective to warrant marketing. The risk does not end there, however. A recent study by Professor Henry Grabowski, of Duke University, showed that only 3 of 10 new pharmaceutical products introduced in the United States during the 1970s actually generated any profits for the companies that developed them. How complex is pharmaceutical R&D? Consider just some of the hurdles involved in the evaluation of each potential pharmaceutical product that enters the development process: - We must complete scores of laboratory tests that probe potential safety and efficacy. - We must manage global clinical tests of safety and efficacy that involve thousands of patients in a dozen or more countries. - We must formulate dosage forms of each product that best deliver the active ingredients to patients. - We must develop high-quality, cost-effective, environmentally sound manufacturing processes for compounds that are often very complex chemical entities. - We must prepare mountains of research data for submission to regulatory authorities in countries around the world. For instance, one of our recent submissions to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration involved 900,000 pages of data assembled in well over 1,000 volumes. How time-consuming are these complex R&D programs? Let's go step by step. It usually takes several years to establish a discovery- research program in which scientists begin to identify promising compounds. It typically takes from 5 to 8 years for us to conduct all the tests required to evaluate each drug candidate. Then it takes another 3 to 4 years for regulatory authorities to consider a new drug application and approve the marketing of the new product. Consider this example. The Lilly product Prozac represents an important new treatment for patients suffering from major depressive disorder. Although we introduced Prozac to the U.S. medical community in 1988, this innovative product came from a research program that began in the mid-l960s. The bottom line is that discovery-research programs often take a total of two decades or more to yield new products. How costly are these long, complicated R&D programs? Last year, a Tufts University group estimated that the discovery and development of a new pharmaceutical product during the l980s required an investment of some $231 million in 1987 U.S. dollars. That number is increasing rapidly. One reason is the ever-more meticulous safety testing of drug candidates in humans. In the mid- l970s, for instance, clinical trials of the Lilly oral antibiotic Ceclor involved 1,400 patients. But recent clinical studies of our oral- antibiotic candidate Lorabid encompassed 10,000 patients. Clinical- trial costs constitute the largest portion of total drug-development expenses -- and they have skyrocketed in recent years. At Lilly, we believe that it will take $400 million to develop each of our current drug candidates. And those costs do not include the expenses required to build manufacturing facilities -- expenses that can climb well into nine figures for hard-to-manufacture products. Pharmaceutical R&D has become a "big science." The R&D programs that yield new drugs need the same kinds of technical, management, and financial commitment required to develop the most imposing high technology products -- including supercomputers themselves. I want to mention another dimension of our business environment. The research-based pharmaceutical industry is unusually competitive and cosmopolitan. Historically, no single company has held more than 5 percent of the global market. Based on sales, the 10 or 12 top-ranking companies are very tightly clustered, compared with most industries. These companies are based in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States. I would like to note that many of our competitors abroad are mammoth technology-based corporations, such as Bayer, CIBA- GEIGY, Hoechst, Hoffman-La Roche, Imperial Chemical Industries, and Sandoz. These are truly formidable firms with superb technical resources. Their pharmaceutical operations represent relatively small portions of their total sales. By contrast, U.S. pharmaceutical companies are, for the most part, smaller companies that have focused their resources on human-health-care innovation. In this competitive industry, the United States has an excellent record of innovation. For instance, nearly half of the 60 new medicines that won global acceptance between 1975 and 1986 were discovered by U.S.-based scientists. In addition, the pharmaceutical industry has consistently made positive contributions to this nation's trade balance. Over the past half decade, however, the research-based pharmaceutical industry has experienced major changes. The rapid escalation of R&D costs has helped precipitate major structural changes in a sector of the global economy where the United States is an established leader. An unprecedented wave of mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures has led to fewer, larger competitors. In several cases, foreign companies have assumed control of U.S. firms. Competition in the research-based pharmaceutical industry will only become more challenging during the 1990s and beyond. Consequently, Lilly has evaluated many opportunities to reinforce its capacity to innovate -- to reinforce its capacity to compete. Supercomputing is a case in point: - We believe that these powerful systems will help our scientists pursue innovation. - We believe that these systems will help us compete. Now, let's move from business to science. Scientists have long been frustrated in their efforts to address the fundamental questions of pharmaceutical R&D. Only recently have we been able to begin probing these questions. We've begun to probe them not through experimentation but through the computational science of molecular modeling. Prominent among these scientific priorities are the following: - The quantitative representation of interactions between drug candidates and drug targets, especially receptors and enzymes - The process by which proteins -- huge molecules that are fundamental to life -- are "folded" into distinct con- figurations through natural biological processes - The properties that enable catalysts to facilitate essential chemical reactions required to produce pharmaceutical products. Today, I'd like to discuss the first of these challenges. I'll concentrate on the interaction of drug candidates with receptors. As you know, normal biological processes -- the beating of the heart, the clotting of blood, the processing of information by the brain -- involve complex biochemical chain reactions, sometimes referred to as "cascades." Let me give you an example. During these chain reactions, natural substances in the body cause certain substances in the body to produce other molecules, which, in turn, cause either the next biochemical step in the cascade or a specific response by an organ or tissue -- a movement, a thought, the secretion of a hormone. Over the years, scientists have found that disease often occurs when there is either too much or too little of a key molecule in one of these biological cascades. As a result, research groups are studying these chain reactions, which are fundamental to life itself. The natural substances involved in these processes link with, or bind to, large molecules, called receptors, which are located on the surfaces of cells. We often use this analogy: a natural substance fits into a receptor, much like a key fits into a lock. Many scientists at Lilly -- at all research-based pharmaceutical companies -- are focusing their studies on receptors involved in a host of diseases, ranging from depression and anxiety to heart attack and stroke. Their goal is to better understand these locks and then to design and to synthesize chemical keys that fit into them. In some cases, we want to design chemical agents that activate the receptor and stimulate a biochemical event. Compounds called agonists serve as keys that open the locks. In other cases, we want to synthesize chemical agents that block the receptor and stop a natural substance from binding to the receptor. These compounds, called antagonists, prevent the biological locks from working. Unfortunately, this drug-design process is fraught with problems. Most importantly, receptors are not typical locks. They are complex proteins composed of thousands of atoms. Moreover, they are in constant, high-speed motion within the body's natural aqueous environment. This brings us to one of the most promising applications of supercomputing technology. Mathematicians can formulate equations that describe virtually anything we experience or imagine: the soft-drink can on your desk or the motion of the liquid in that can as you gently swirl it during a telephone conversation. Each can be expressed in numbers. Of course, those examples are relatively simple. But scientists can also develop equations that describe the remarkable complexity of meteorological phenomena...geological formations...and key molecules involved in the body's natural processes. In recent years, they have developed mathematical models describing the realistic motion -- the bending, rotation, and vibration -- of chemical bonds in large molecules, such as receptors. These models are emerging as important tools for scientists probing how potential drug candidates would likely affect the target receptors. These mathematical descriptions are based on equations involving billions of numbers. Conventional computers take days, weeks, or even longer to perform related calculations. But supercomputers do this work in fractions of a second. A second computer then translates the results into graphic representations on a terminal screen. These graphic representations can serve as a new communications medium -- and new "language" -- for scientists. Teams of scientists can share the same visualized image of how a specific chemical agent would likely affect the receptor in question. They can quickly evaluate the probable effects of modifications in the chemical. They can generate entirely new ideas -- and analyze them. They can focus the painfully slow efforts required to synthesize and test compounds on those agents that appear to have genuine potential. Supercomputers enable scientists to see what no one else has seen. Historically, technical breakthroughs that have dramatically expanded the range of human perception -- from early telescopes and microscopes to modern cyclotrons and electron microscopes -- have enabled the research community to make landmark discoveries, develop revolutionary inventions, and pioneer new academic disciplines. We have every reason to believe that supercomputing can do the same. Now, let's return to the Lilly experience. Several years ago, the interest in supercomputing began to grow at Lilly Research Laboratories. We considered a number of ways to evaluate this research tool. Obviously, supercomputers don't do anything by themselves. They would only be relevant to our mission and our goals if Lilly scientists actively and creatively embraced them. We had to see whether our biologists, chemists, and pharmacologists could really apply those graphic representations of receptors and enzymes to real drug-discovery problems. In January 1988, we took the first step: Lilly became an industrial partner in the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. This opportunity to learn about supercomputing afforded us by interacting with the NCSA proved to be an essential element in our supercomputing decision. Many of our scientists were in- deed interested in learning how to use supercomputers. Many of them quickly began to apply the systems to their work. In April 1990, our supercomputing program took a great step forward with the installation of a Cray 2S-2/128 system at our central laboratories in Indianapolis. Lilly scientists are using the system at a far greater rate than we expected. In the meantime, we've maintained our relationship with the NCSA to ensure maximum support for our program and to keep abreast of new developments in the field. Our experience to date suggests three interrelated advantages of supercomputing that we believe will make Lilly even more competitive in the years ahead. - We believe these systems will speed up the identification of promising drug candidates. Supercomputing will enable Lilly scientists to design new drug candidates that they otherwise would not have even considered. Supercomputing may well cut days, weeks, even months from the overall process required to identify novel compounds. - We believe these systems will foster great collaboration among scientists from various disciplines who are involved in pharmaceutical R&D. Productive research in our industry increasingly depends on teamwork. supercomputer-generated graphic simulations help scientists with diverse academic training to share the same vision of crucial data. Again, these visual images become a common language for scientists with different academic training. Moreover, supercomputing will make these multidisciplinary research efforts more spontaneous, energetic, and intense. In the past, our research was a step-by-step process in which long periods often separated the formulation of ideas from experiments required to test those ideas. But supercomputing helps teams of scientists integrate their ideas and tests into a dynamic, interactive process. These systems facilitate the communication, creativity, and decision making that are critical to productive R & D programs. - We believe these systems will encourage truly visionary exploration. A spirit of unfettered inquiry drives scientific progress. In the past, however, scientists were unable to test many novel ideas because they didn't have sufficient computing power. Now, supercomputers are motivating our scientists to ask "what if?" more boldly than ever before -- and to help them quickly consider many possible answers to their questions. It's especially interesting to watch scientists actually get familiar with supercomputing. As you know, good scientists are among the most independent people in any society. They respect good theories. But they demand empirical data to support the theories. In six months, I've seen some pretty tough-minded chemists move from skepticism to genuine enthusiasm for these systems. Moreover, we clearly see that many of the very brightest young Ph.D.s coming out of graduate school are very enthusiastic about this technology. Our supercomputing capabilities have become a recruiting magnet. I want to stress that supercomputing is only one of a number of powerful new technologies that research-based pharmaceutical companies are applying to their drug-discovery programs. But it's a very powerful scientific tool -- a tool that will become all the more powerful with networking capabilities. - A supercomputer network will greatly facilitate the dynamic collaboration among scientists at different locations -- often different institutions. Lilly scientists are working with research groups at universities and high technology companies around the world. A national supercomputer network would greatly enhance the effectiveness of joint efforts with our colleagues at the University of Michigan or the University of Washington at Seattle, for example. - A supercomputer network will help us optimize scarce scientific talent during a period when we're almost certain to experience major shortfalls in the availability of Ph.D.- level scientists. I would go so far as to suggest that the visualization capabilities of supercomputing may actually help attract more of the best and the brightest into the sciences -- this at a time when key industries in the U.S. economy desperately need such talent. Finally, I can't overemphasize that a supercomputing network will help scientists ask questions whose answers they could never seriously pursue before. Tens of thousands of our best thinkers will find applications for this technology that will totally outstrip any predictions that we venture today. Supercomputing represents a revolution. a new wave...a paradigm shift in the development of modern technology. In conclusion, I want to stress two points. We believe that supercomputers and a national supercomputing network are important to our company, to our industry, and to the medical professionals and patients we serve. We believe that super- computing will play a crucial role in many technology-based industries and in the growth of national economies that depend on these industries. Again, we strongly recommend the enactment of S. 272. Thank you.