Washington DC… The House of Representatives Committee on Science has learned that the United States could soon lose its world-wide distinction as the leading nation in science and technology, according to Committee Member U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson (IL-15).  The congressional panel heard testimony about the urgency of this matter from several leading American scientists as part of a review on federal policy on supercomputing.  Among those testifying before the panel was Dr. Daniel Reed of the University of Illinois.

“Dr. Reed and other experts on supercomputing have shared with the Science Committee the urgent need to maintain federal assistance for continued research and development of supercomputing applications,” said Johnson.  “I join with my colleagues on the Committee and urge this Congress to assure that our country continues to be a world leader in super-computation and similar technologies.”

Dr. Reed, Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign stated, “The intersecting frontiers of biology and high-end computing are illuminating biological processes and medical treatments for disease…In particular understanding how proteins form three-dimensional structures is central to designing better drugs and combating deadly diseases such as HIV and SARS.” However, Reed noted, “Today’s most-powerful high-end computing systems can only simulate microseconds of the protein folding process; complete folding takes milliseconds or more.  Such large-scale biological simulations will require vast increases in computing capability, perhaps as much as 1000 times today’s capacity.

In addition to more advanced computing capacity, Reed stated, “there is a large and unmet demand for access to high-end computing in support of basic scientific and engineering research.  There are neither enough high-end computing systems available nor are their capabilities adequate to address fully the research challenges and opportunities.”