Supercomputers Directions in Technology and Applications (1989) / Chapter Skim
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2. Supercomputers: Vital Tool for the Nation's Future
2. Supercomputers: Vital Tool for the Nation's Future
Pages 5-12
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From page 5... ...
There is a bewildering and growing array of applications in the development of technology and in the creation of new products and industrial processes, and that is the part of the story that this symposium addresses. In introducing Senator Albert Gore, Jr., I say with confidence that few in Congress understand better the essential role of advancing technology in this nation's future than does Senator Gore, and he has expressed that understanding by legislative leadership, by an informed and vigorous critique of federal science and technology policy, and most especially by his efforts to ensure that this nation maintains and exploits its forefront .
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From page 6... ...
We are creating global environmental problems that sound like the plots of bad science fiction novels, and in all of these fields our so-called common sense is challenged because common sense is an accumulation of distilled experience, and we have moved beyond historic experience. What is happening is not only new, it is not only unprecedented, but it is also, in many cases, unimagined and is so different from what has happened in civilization up until now that we are jarred and knocked off balance and require some pause to collect ourselves and realize that this is indeed a turning point.
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From page 7... ...
We must launch an immediate assault on five fronts: 1. We must create a national fiber optic network with high capacity for linking supercomputing centers throughout the United States.
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From page 8... ...
I began with that model and then changed it significantly as I began to explore high-performance computing. When we think and talk in the United States particularly in my profession of politics-about infrastructure, we often mean highways, bridges, sewer lines, and water lines, and we need those things.
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From page 9... ...
It was difficult to project the benefits that would generate user fees from trucks and cars paying gasoline taxes on interstate highways that did not exist, but the government made the investment and did not add a penny to the national debt, because the commerce generated by the investment was so vast as to generate user fees that have created a huge surplus in the trust fund that was established. We must commit an act of faith once again and invest in new infrastructure that we know we know will create benefits to private industry so vast as to generate user fees or some other form of compensation to more than cover the relatively small investment that would be required to create this infrastructure.
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From page 10... ...
But I want to argue to the National Academy of Sciences, to the commercial entities represented in this symposium, and to scientists and researchers from fields other than computer science that the creation of this national high-volume fiber optic network, a superhighway for information linking supercomputing centers, ought to be the number-one science priority for the United States of America. It is not just a computer science project.
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From page 11... ...
I have called for the establishment of a public-private corporation that will evaluate particularly high-priorit,r projects and then provide seed money that has to be leveraged by private investment with a large multiple to the public investment. But the private investment will be pulled in by the imprimatur or seal of approval that comes from the selection of a particular software project that is greatly needed and has high priority.
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From page 12... ...
You know that, and I want you to feel one day soon that your government also knows that. Each of you in your field is doing America a favor by pointing the way to the future.
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