White House Issues Update to National Strategic Computing Initiative
The White House National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has released an updated National Strategic Computing Imitative on Pioneering the Future of Computing. The plan builds upon the 2016 plan in an effort to further engage partners in government, academia, and industry. The plan acknowledges the success of the current strategic computing plan and works to build upon this success.
The original computing plan was created in 2016 following an Executive Order by President Obama which called for a “whole-of-nation” effort to accelerate American leadership in high-performance supercomputing. As a result, the U.S. already has five of the top ten fastest supercomputers in the world, including the two fastest. According to NextGov, earlier this year, the Energy Department also announced its aim to launch Aurora, America’s first exascale supercomputer, with performance capabilities of at least one exaflop, which is a quintillion—or a billion billion—calculations per second.
Having accomplished those goals, the White House Office of Science and Technology (OST) and NSTC created a Fast Track Action Committee on Strategic Computing in June 2019 to address ways to further expand computing initiatives and build off these successes.
“The national computing landscape is undergoing rapid evolution along multiple dimensions due to the introduction of new and potentially disruptive technologies and the demands of new classes of data-intensive applications. Computer architectures and systems are more heterogeneous and complex, and the challenges associated with the complexity and sustainability of software are significant,” a report detailing the new objectives explains. “Application developers are being called to meet demands for improved usability and productivity. Therefore, to address this new environment, it is essential to update the 2016 U.S. Strategic Computing Plan in a holistic and synergistic fashion that involves government, academia, and industry.”
The Committee’s work led NSTC to adopt three refocused objectives on computing:
Pioneer new frontiers of digital and non-digital computation to address the scientific and technological challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
Develop, broaden, and advance the Nation’s computational infrastructure and ecosystem.
Forge and expand partnerships for the future of computing to ensure American leadership in science, technology, and innovation.
The report outlines potential challenges for the first two objectives. For the first objective, the report outlines potential software limitations. For the second, there are potential data, cybersecurity, cyberinfrastructure, and workforce challenges that may arise. The report notes that there are also opportunities in the areas of cybersecurity and cyberinfrastructure to improve systems.
The NSTC report also includes recommendations for achieving the new goals.
According to the report, the new objectives and recommendation were created through engagement with government, academia, and industry through various means, including a Request for Information and a Future Computing Community of Interest Meeting.
