If the United States is to maintain the lead in high-performance information technology, the early investment must be made. Some say “let industry do it.” In my view, that is not a logical request … Competition in technology is not “won”; there is a continual competition … Government funds the long-term, the high-risk research, and industry aggressively exploits the new opportunities to build market and to take global leadership … If government investment in high-performance computing research falters, then I believe we will have reduced opportunity for U.S. industry to sustain what continues today to be our lead.
Predictor: Jones, Anita K.
Prediction, in context:In an Oct. 31, 1995, appearance before the Subcommittee on Basic Research of the House Committee on Science Anita Jones, director of Defense Research and Engineering in the U.S. Department of Defense for the Clinton administration, makes the following statement: ”If the United States is to maintain the lead in high-performance information technology, the early investment must be made. Some say ‘let industry do it.’ In my view, that is not a logical request. Industry’s objective is to return a profit, not to invent new technology. Industry will seek low-risk paths to that goal in order to protect the interest of their shareholders and to maximize the probability of success … In the United States, funding the search for solutions to the very long-term, far-future problems falls to the government … Competition in technology is not ‘won’; there is a continual competition … Government funds the long-term, the high-risk research, and industry aggressively exploits the new opportunities to build market and to take global leadership. Today, of the top 20 highest-performance computers in the world, half are in the U.S. and half are in Japan. If government investment in high-performance computing research falters, then I believe we will have reduced opportunity for U.S. industry to sustain what continues today to be our lead … The NSTC Committee on Information and Communications (CIC), which I chair, has developed a Strategic Implementation Plan that outlines broad areas of future investments. We have opened this planning process up by engaging academia, industry, and government to assess our mutual ideas and approaches. These inputs are being used to formulate our strategy and investments for the future. To ensure that research and underlying technology development is fully responsive to end-user applications and to national goals, activities must be strategically focused and efficiently coordinated … the CIC has developed six Strategic Focus Areas to guide federal research and technology investment in information and communication into the next century: Global-Scale Information Infrastructure Technologies; High-Performance/Scalable Systems; High-Confidence Systems; Virtual Environments; User-Centered Interfaces and Tools; Human Resources and Education … Sustained investments in information and communications are critical to success.”
Biography:Anita Jones was chair of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Computing, Information and Communications and the Defense Director of Research and Engineering in the early 1990s, during the development of the Strategic Implementation Plan. She is the author of dozens of papers and many books. (Technology Administrator/Developer.)
Date of prediction: October 31, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: Congressional Testimony: Subcommittee on Basic Research of the House Committee on Science
Title, headline, chapter name: Federal High-Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Program
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=25e3ffa7da2995918ff512f775b8fbeb
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Kildale, Tiffany Ann