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1991-04-15
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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.