Internet Info 1994 March/Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (March 1994).iso/inet/nren/hpca.1991/hearing.all-txt

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                                           Statement

                                            of the

                                 American Library Association

                                            to the

                        Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space
              Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

                            for the hearing record of March 5, 1991

                                              on

                      S. 272  The High-Performance Computing Act of 1991


     The National Research and Education Network, which S. 272 would
 create, could revolutionize the conduct of research, education, and
 information transfer. As part of the infrastructure supporting
 education and research, libraries are already stakeholders in the
 evolution to a networked society. For this reason, the American
 Library Association, a nonprofit educational organization of more
 than 51,000 librarians, educators, information scientists, and library
 trustees and friends of libraries, endorsed in January 1990 and again
 in January 1991 the concept of a National Research and Education
 Network.

     ALA's latest resolution, a copy of which is attached, identified
 elements which should be incorporated in legislation to create the
 NREN, a high-capacity electronic highway of interconnected networks
 linking business, industry, government, and the education and
 library communities. ALA also joined with 19 other education,
 library, and computing organizations and associations in a
 Partnership for the National Research and Education Network. On
 January 25, 1991, the Partnership organizations recommended a
 policy framework for the NREN which also identified elements to be
 incorporated in NREN legislation.

     Within that framework, ALA recommends the following additions
 to the pending NREN legislation to facilitate the provision of the
 information resources users will expect on the network, to provide
 appropriate and widely dispersed points of user access, and to
 leverage the federal investment.

     NREN authorizing legislation should provide for:

     A.  Recognition of education in its broadest sense as a reason for
 development of the NREN;

     B.  Eligibility of all types of libraries to link to the NREN as
 resource providers and as access points for users; and

     C.  A voice for involved constituencies, including libraries, in
 development of network policy and technical standards.

 NREN legislation should authorize support for:

     A.  High-capacity network connections with all 50 states;

     B. A percentage of network development funds allocated for
 education and training; and

     C.  Direct connections to the NREN for at least 200 key libraries and
 library organizations and dial-up access for multitype libraries
 within each state to those key libraries. Prime candidates (some of
 which are already connected to the Internet) for direct connection to
 the NREN include:

         - The three national libraries (Library of Congress, National
 Agricultural Library, National Library of Medicine) and other federal
 agency libraries and information centers;

         - Fifty-one regional depository libraries (generally one per
 state) which have a responsibility to provide free public access to all
 publications (including in electronic formats) of U.S. government
 agencies;

         - Fifty-one state library agencies (or their designated resource
 libraries or library networks) which have responsibility for
 statewide library development and which administer federal funds;

         - Libraries in geographic areas which have a scarcity of NREN
 connections;

         - Libraries with specialized or unique resources of national or
 international significance; and

         - Library networks and bibliographic utilities which act on
 behalf of libraries.

     The National Science Foundation, through its various programs,
 including science education, should provide for:

     A.  The inclusion of libraries both within and outside of higher
 education and elementary and secondary education as part of the
 research and education support structure;

     B. Education and training in network use at all levels of education;
 and

     C.  Experimentation and demonstrations in network applications.

     ALA enthusiastically supports development of an NREN with
 strong library involvement for several reasons.

     1. The NREN has the potential to revolutionize the conduct of
 research, education, and information transfer. As basic literacy
 becomes more of a problem in the United States, the skills needed to
 be truly literate grow more sophisticated. ALA calls this higher set of
 skills "information literacy"-knowing how to learn, knowing how to
 find and use information, knowing how knowledge is organized.
 Libraries play a role in developing these skills, beginning with
 encouraging preschool children to read.

         Libraries as community institutions and as part of educational
 institutions introduce users to technology. Many preschoolers and
 their grandparents have used a personal computer for the first time
 at a public library. Libraries are using technology, not only to
 organize their in-house collections, but to share knowledge of those
 collections with users of other libraries, and to provide users with
 access to other library resources, distant databases, and actual
 documents. Libraries have begun a historic shift from providing
 access primarily to the books on the shelves to providing access to
 the needed information wherever it may be located. The NREN is the
 vehicle librarians need to accelerate this trend.

         In Michigan, a pilot program called M-Link has made librarians
 at a group of community libraries full, mainstream information
 providers. Since 1988, M-Link has enabled libraries in Alpena, Bay
 County, Hancock, Battle Creek, Farmington, Grand Rapids, and Lapeer
 to have access to the extensive resources of the University of
 Michigan Library via the state's MERIT network. The varied requests
 of dentists, bankers, city managers, small business people,
 community arts organizations, and a range of other users are
 transmitted to the University's librarians via telephone, fax, or
 computer and modem. Information can be faxed quickly to the local
 libraries from the University. Access to a fully developed NREN
 would increase by several magnitudes both the amount and types of
 information available and the efficiency of such library
 interconnections. Eventually, the NREN could stimulate the type of
 network that would be available to all these people directly.

         School libraries also need electronic access to distant resources
 for students and teachers. In information-age schools linked to a
 fully developed NREN, teachers would work consistently with
 librarians, media resource people, and instructional designers to
 provide interactive student learning projects. Use of multiple sources
 of information helps students develop the critical thinking skills
 needed by employers and needed to function in a democratic society.
 This vision of an information-age school builds on today's
 groundwork. For instance, the New York State Library is providing
 dial-up access for school systems to link the resources of the state
 library (a major research resource) and more than 50 public,
 reference, and research library systems across the state. The schools
 had a demonstrated need for improved access for research and other
 difficult-to-locate materials for students, faculty, and administrators.

     2. Current Internet users want library-like services, and libraries
 have responded with everything from online catalogs to electronic
 journals. As universities and colleges became connected to the
 Internet, the campus library's online catalog was one of the first
 information resources faculty and students demanded to have
 available over the same network. Some 200 library online catalogs
 are already accessible through the Internet. Academic library users
 increasingly need full text databases and multimedia and
 personalized information resources in an environment in which the
 meter is not ticking by the minute logged, the citation downloaded,
 or the statistic retrieved. A telecommunications vehicle such as the
 NREN can help equalize the availability of research resources for
 scholars in all types, sizes, and locations of higher education
 institutions.

         Libraries will be looked to for many of the information
 resources expected to be made available over the network, and
 librarians have much to contribute to the daunting task of organizing
 the increasing volumes of electronic information. The Colorado
 Alliance of Research Libraries, a consortium of multitype libraries,
 not only lists what books are available in member libraries, but its
 CARL/Uncover database includes tables of contents from thousands
 of journals in these libraries. Libraries are also pioneering in the
 development of electronic journals. Of the ten scholarly refereed
 electronic journals now in operation or in the planning stages, several
 are sponsored by university libraries or library organizations.

     3. Libraries provide access points for users without an
 Institutional base. Many industrial and independent researchers do
 not have an institutional connection to the Internet. All such
 researchers and scholars are legitimate users of at least one public
 library. The NREN legislation as introduced does not reflect current
 use of the networks, much less the full potential for support of
 research and education. Because access to Internet resources is
 necessary to this goal, many libraries outside academe without access
 to academic networks have developed creative, if sometimes
 awkward, ways to fill the gap. A number of high schools have guest
 accounts at universities, but only a few have managed to get direct
 connections. CARL, the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries,
 reaches library users regardless of the type of library they are using
 or their point of access. The development of community computer
 systems such as the Cleveland Free-net is another example of
 providing network access to a larger community of library users.
 Several Cleveland area public, academic, and special libraries are
 information providers on the Free-net as well.

         Most of the companies in California high-technology centers
 either began as or still have fewer than 50 employees. For these
 companies, there is no major research facility or corporate library.
 The local public libraries provide strong support as research
 resources for such companies. The California State Library has
 encouraged and supported such development, for example, through
 grants to projects like the Silicon Valley Information Center in the
 San Jose Public Library. Library access to the NREN would improve
 libraries' ability to serve the needs of small business.

         Support of research and education needs in rural areas could
 also be aided through library access to the NREN. Even without such
 access, libraries are moving to provide information electronically
 throughout their states, often through state networks. An example is
 the North Carolina Information Network. NCIN, through an agreement
 between the State Library and the University of North Carolina's
 Educational Computing Service, provides information access to almost
 400 libraries in every part of the state-from university and
 corporate libraries in the Research Triangle Park, to rural mountain
 and coastal public libraries, to military base libraries. Using federal
 Library Services and Construction Act funds, the State Library
 provides the local equipment needed at the packet nodes to permit
 access to the system (called LINCNET) to these local libraries.

         The information needs of rural people and communities are just
 as sophisticated and important as the needs of the people in urban
 areas. Because the North Carolina network is available in rural
 libraries, small businesses in these communities have access for the
 first time to a state database of all contracts for goods, services, and
 construction being put out for bid by the state-just one example of
 network contribution to economic development. The key to the
 network's growing success is the installation of basic computer and
 telecommunications hardware in the libraries, access to higher speed
 data telecommunications, and the database searching skills of the
 librarians.

     4. With libraries and their networks, the support structure to
 make good use of the NREN already exists. Librarians have been
 involved in using computers and telecommunications to solve
 information problems since the 1960s when the library community
 automated variable-length and complex records-a task which was
 not being done by the computer field at the time. Librarians
 pioneered in the development of standards so that thousands of
 libraries could all use the same bibliographic databases, unlike e-
 mail systems today which each require a different mode of address.
 The library profession has a strong public service orientation and a
 cooperative spirit; its codes of behavior fit well with that of the
 academic research community.

         Libraries have organized networks to share resources, pool
 purchasing power, and make the most efficient use of
 telecommunications capacity and technical expertise. Upgrading of
 technological equipment and technological retraining are recognized
 library requirements, although the resources to follow through are
 often inadequate. The retraining extends to library users as well.
 Librarians are familiar with the phenomenon of the home computer
 or VCR purchaser who can word process or play a tape, but is all
 thumbs when it comes to higher functions not used every day.
 Computer systems, networks, and databases can seem formidable to
 the novice and are often not user-friendly. Expert help at the library
 is essential for many users.

     5. NREN development should build on existing federal investments
 in the sharing of library and information resources and the
 dissemination of government information. The Internet/NREN
 networks are in some cases not technically compatible with current
 library networking arrangements. However, the government or
 university database or individual expert most appropriate to an
 inquiry may well be available only via the Internet/NREN. Access to
 specific information resources and the potential linkage to scarce
 human resources is one reason why most librarians are likely to
 need at least some access to the NREN.

         As the Internet/NREN is used by various federal agencies, it
 becomes a logical vehicle for the dissemination of federal
 government databases. The Government Printing Office, through its
 Depository Library Program, has begun providing access to
 government information in electronic formats, including online
 databases. A unified government information infrastructure
 accessible through depository libraries would enable all sectors of
 society to use effectively the extensive data that is collected and
 disseminated by the federal government. Disseminating time-
 sensitive documents electronically would allow all citizens, small
 businesses, and nonprofit groups to have real-time access to
 government information through an existing organized system of
 depository libraries. The 51 regional libraries (generally one in each
 state, many of which are university and other libraries already
 connected to the Internet) could provide the original nodes for such a
 system. Together with major libraries capable of providing such
 support, these libraries could provide access for smaller libraries and
 selective depositories within their states or regions through dial-up
 facilities or local area networks.

         The library community has been assisted and encouraged in its
 networking efforts by the federal government beginning in the
 1960s, and more recently by state support also, in ways that track
 well with the NREN model. The federal government spends in the
 neighbor- hood of $200 million per year on programs which promote
 and support interlibrary cooperation and resource sharing and
 library applications of new technology. These programs range from
 the Library Services and Construction Act, the Higher Education Act
 title II, the Depository Library Program, the library postal rate, and
 the Medical Library Assistance Act to programs of the three national
 libraries-the Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library,
 and the National Library of Medicine.

         If academic libraries continue their migration to the
 Internet/NREN as the network of choice both on campus and for
 communication with other academic institutions, it will not be
 long before academic libraries and public libraries find themselves
 unable to talk to one another electronically. This result will be totally
 at odds with the goals of every major legislative vehicle through
 which the federal government assists libraries. In addition, it makes
 no sense, given the intimate connection of public libraries to the
 support structure for research and education. While public libraries
 have long been recognized as engines of lifelong learning, the
 connection is much more direct in many cases, ranging from the
 magnificent research resources of a New York Public Library to the
 strong support for distance learning provided by many public
 libraries in Western states.

         Interlibrary loan and reference referral patterns also show that
 every kind of library supports every other's mission. The academic,
 public, school, state, national, and specialized libraries of the nation
 constitute a loose but highly interconnected system. A network
 which supports research and education, or even research alone,
 cannot accomplish the job without including this multitype system of
 libraries in planning, policy formulation, and implementation.

     6. The NREN's higher seeds will enable the sharing of full text and
 nontextual library and archival resources. Libraries will increasingly
 need the higher capacity of the NREN to exploit fully library special
 collections and archives. The high data rates available over the fully
 developed NREN will make possible the transmission of images of
 journal articles, patents, sound and video clips, photos, artwork,
 manuscripts, large files from satellite data collection archives,
 engineering and architectural design, and medical image databases.
 Work has already begun at the national libraries and elsewhere;
 examples include the Library of Congress American Memory project
 and the National Agricultural Library text digitizing project.

     7. Libraries provide a useful laboratory for exploration of what
 services and what user interfaces might stimulate a mass
 marketplace. One purpose of the NREN bills since the beginning has
 been to promote eventual privatization of the network. Libraries
 have already demonstrated the feasibility and marketability of
 databases in the CD-ROM format. Libraries also convinced proprietors
 and distributors to accommodate the mounting on local campus
 systems of heavily used databases. Libraries can serve as middle- to
 low-end network use test beds in their role as intermediaries
 between the public and its information requirements.

     8. Public, school, and college libraries are appropriate institutions
 to bridge the growing gap between the information poor and the
 information rich. While we pursue information literacy for all the
 population, we can make realistic progress through appropriate
 public service institutions such as libraries. However, while an
 increase in commercial services would be welcome, any transition to
 privatization should not come at the expense of low-cost
 communications for education and libraries. Ongoing efforts such as
 federal library and education legislation, preferential postal rates for
 educational and library use, and federal and state supported library
 and education networks provide ample precedent for continued
 congressional attention to own and inexpensive access.

     In conclusion, the NREN legislation would be strengthened in
 reaching the potential of the network, in ALA's view, with the
 addition of the elements we have enumerated above. Our
 recommendations represent recognition of the substantial
 investment libraries have already made in the Internet and in the
 provision of resources available over it, authorization of modest and
 affordable near-term steps to build on that base for library
 involvement in the NREN, and establishment of a framework for
 compatible efforts through other federal legislation, and state and
 local library efforts.


 ATTACHMENT


 WASHINGTON OFFICE
 American Library Association
 110 Maryland Avenue, N.E.
 Washington, D.C. 20002
 [phone]

 Resolution on a National Research and Education Network

 WHEREAS,     The American Library Association endorsed the concept
 of a National Research and Education Network in a Resolution passed
 by its Council (1989-90 CD #54) on January 10, 1990; and

 WHEREAS,     Legislation to authorize the development of a National
 Research and Education Network has not yet been enacted; and

 WHEREAS,     High-capacity electronic communications is increasingly
 vital to research, innovation, education, and information literacy; and

 WHEREAS,     Development of a National Research and Education
 Network is a significant infrastructure investment requiring a
 partnership of federal, state, local, institutional, and private-sector
 efforts; and

 WHEREAS,     Libraries linked to the National Research and Education
 Network would spread its benefit more broadly, enhance the
 resources to be made available over it, and increase access to those
 resources; now, therefore, be it

 RESOLVED,     That the American Library Association reaffirm its
 support of a National Research and Education Network, and
 recommend incorporation of the following elements in NREN
 legislation:

         - Recognition of education in its broadest sense as a reason for
 development of the NREN;

         - Eligibility of all types of libraries to link to the NREN as
 resource providers and as access points for users;

         - A voice for involved constituencies, including libraries, in
 development of network policy and technical standards;

         - High-capacity network connections with all 50 states and
 territories;

         - Federal matching and other forms of assistance (including
 through other federal programs) to state and local education and
 library agencies, institutions, and organizations.

 Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association
 Chicago, Illinois
 January 16, 1991
 (Council Document #40)

 Executive Offices:  50 East Huron Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611
 [phone]




  ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES

    1527 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W, Washington, DC. 20026
    [phone]    FAX [phone]


                  Statement of the Association of Research Libraries
                                        to the
                    Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space
               Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
                        for the Hearing Record of March 5, 1991
                on S. 272 - The High-Performance Computing Act of 1991


   The Association of Research Libraries is a non-profit Association of
 119 research libraries in North America. The membership of ARL is
 actively involved in the provision of information resources -
 including those that are unique, to the research and education
 communities of North America. Research libraries also are key
 participants in numerous experiments and pilot programs that
 demonstrate the utility of high capacity networks for the exchange
 and use of information. ARL supports the passage of legislation that
 will promote the development and use of expanded networking
 capacities and capabilities to advance education and research.

         The need for a high-speed computer communications network is
 a reflection of a number of changes underway in the academic and
 library communities. Three of these changes include the need to
 connect researchers with facilities such as supercomputers,
 databases, and library resources; the changing manner in which
 scholars and researchers communicate; and finally, the ability of
 these researchers to manipulate and combine large data sets or files
 in new ways only possible through connecting users with high-speed,
 high-capacity networks.

         The NREN, the vision of the next generation network designed to
 support -the work of the education and research communities -
 must reflect the changes noted above as well as those efforts already
 underway that address the new uses of information, while at the
 same time, address the national goals of improving our Nation's
 productivity and international competitive position. To realize these
 goals and to build upon existing efforts, ARL with others in the
 education community support the inclusion of the following points in
 NREN legislation. These points build upon existing successful federal,
 state, and local programs that facilitate access to information
 resources.

 NREN authorizing legislation should provide for:

         - Recognition of education in its broadest sense as a reason for
 development of the NREN;
         - Eligibility of all types of libraries to link to the NREN as
 resource providers and as access points for users;
         - A voice for involved constituencies, including libraries, in
 development of network policy and technical standards.

 NREN legislation should authorize support for:

         - High capacity network connections with all 50 states;
         - A percentage of network development funds should be
 allocated for education and training;
         - Direct connections to the NREN for at least 200 key libraries
 and library organizations and dial-up access for multi-type libraries
 within each state to those key libraries. Prime candidates for direct
 connections include:

               *The three national libraries (Library of Congress, National
 Agricultural Library, National Library of Medicine) and other federal
 agency libraries and
 information centers;

               *51 regional depository libraries (generally one per state)
 which have a responsibility to provide free public access to all
 publications (including in electronic formats) of U.S. government
 agencies;
               *51 state library agencies (or their designated resource
 libraries or library networks) which have responsibility for
 statewide library development and which administer federal funds;
               *Libraries in geographic areas which have a scarcity of
 NREN connections;
               *Libraries with specialized or unique resources of national
 or international significance;
               *Library networks and bibliographic utilities which act on
 behalf of libraries.

 The National Science Foundation, through its various programs,
 including science education, should provide for:

         - The inclusion of libraries both within and outside of higher
 education and elementary/secondary education as part of the
 research and education support structure;
        - Education and training in network use at all levels of
 education;
           Experimentation and demonstrations in network applications.

         The information infrastructure of the United States is a complex
 conglomeration of public and private networks, institutions,
 information resources, and users from educational, research, library,
 and industrial communities with extensive ties to international
 networks and infrastructures. Research libraries and the resources
 that they acquire, organize, maintain, and/or provide access to, are
 critical elements of this infrastructure. In support of their mission to
 advance scholarship and research, these same libraries have been at
 the forefront of the technological revolution that has made this
 robust and evolving information infrastructure possible.

         One of the most exciting and unanticipated results of the
 NSFNET has been the explosive growth of the network as a
 communications link. The enhanced connectivity permits scholars
 and researchers to communicate in new and different ways and
 stimulates innovation. Approximately one-quarter of the use of
 NSFNET is for E-mail, one-quarter for file exchange, 20% for
 interactive applications, and 30% for associated services. It is this
 latter category that is growing at an extraordinary rate and includes
 new and innovative library uses of networks. This growth rate
 demonstrates the value that researchers place on access to library
 and information resources in support of education and research. The
 following examples demonstrate the types of activities underway in
 academic and research libraries that utilize networks.

         In the past year, the number of library online catalogs available
 on the Internet has jumped from thirty to over 160, including those
 in Canada, Australia, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, Israel, and the
 United Kingdom. A single point of access to 100 online public access
 catalogs is possible today through a midwestern university. Access to
 resources identified in online public access catalogs are of increasing
 importance to researchers as they can access a greatly expanded
 array of information resources and in a more timely and efficient
 fashion. Needed information can be located at another institution,
 and depending upon the nature and format of the information,
 downloaded directly, and/or requested via interlibrary loan. Over
 time, this practice will likely change to the researcher obtaining the
 information directly online versus "ordering the information online."
 Typical use of an online catalog at a major research institution is that
 of LIAS at the Pennsylvania State University Library - there are
 approximately 33,000 searches each day of the LIAS system.

         The National Agricultural Library, NAL, is supporting a project
 with the North Carolina State University Libraries to provide
 Internet-based document delivery for library materials. Scanned
 images of documents generate machine readable texts which are
 transmitted via the NSFNET/Internet to libraries, researchers work
 stations, and agricultural research extension offices. Images of
 documents can be delivered directly to the researchers computer,
 placed on diskette, or printed. This program will be extended to the
 entire land- grant community of over 100 institutions as well as to
 other federal agencies and to the international agricultural research
 community.

         Another example of new library services that are possible with
 the use of the information technologies and networks, that meet a
 growing demand in the research community, and represent a
 network growth area are the licensing of commercial journal
 databases by libraries. Four of the last five years of the National
 Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database is accessible to the
 University of California community and there are approximately
 50,000 searches of the system each week. There are numerous
 benefits to researchers and libraries including enhanced access to
 journal literature, there are lower costs to the library than from use
 of commercial systems, and the lower costs encourages greater use of
 the files by researchers thus promoting innovation. As other research
 libraries mount files, similar use patterns have occurred.

         Although Internet access to proprietary files is not permitted,
 there are other services available such as UNCOVER that are more
 widely accessible. UNCOVER is a database with the tables of contents
 for approximately 10,000 multi-disciplinary journals developed by
 the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. The increasing demand
 for UNCOVER demonstrates the need for such services in the
 academic community and one that is available at a low cost for those
 institutions unable to locally mount proprietary files.

         One area of networked services forecast to present new
 opportunities for dissemination and exchange of information in the
 scholarly and research communities and where a significant amount
 of experimentation and "rethinking" is anticipated, is in electronic
 publishing. Publishing electronically is in its infancy. Today, there are
 ten refereed journals on the Internet and it is anticipated that there
 will be many times this number in a short while. These journals,
 available via the Internet, range from Postmodern Culture, (North
 Carolina State University) to New Horizons in Adult Education,
 (Syracuse University) to PSYCOLOQUY, (American Psychological
 Association and Princeton University).

         The nature and format of the electronic journal is evolving. To
 some, the electronic journal is a substitute to the "printed" journal.
 There are an increasing number of "paper- replicating electronic
 journals" and the growing number of titles on CD-ROM and the rapid
 rate of acceptance of this format, is a testament to the value of the
 electronic format. It is anticipated that many of the paper publishers
 will offer an electronic version of their journals via intermediaries
 such as DIALOG and CARL as the use of and capabilities of networks
 expand. This model also presents new dissemination choices to
 government agencies. The National Agricultural Library has begun to
 negotiate agreements with scholarly societies for the optical scanning
 of agricultural titles and information.

         Another view of the electronic journal is one more of process,
 than product. Information or an idea is disseminated on the network
 for open critique, comment, dialog, and exchange. In this instance,
 publishing is an ongoing, interactive, non-static function, and one
 that encourages creativity, connectivity, and interactivity.
 Researchers experimenting in this camp are referred to as
 "skywriters" or "trailblazers." In fact, publishing in this arena takes
 on a new meaning due to the network's capabilities. The use of
 multi-media including sound, text, and graphics, the significantly
 expanded collaborative nature of the scholarly exchange not possible
 with a printed scholarly publication, and finally, the potential for a
 continuously changing information source, distinguishes this
 electronic journal from its counterpart, the paper-replicating
 electronic journal. An online publishing program on the Genome
 Project at the Welch Library at Johns Hopkins University is an
 example of this type of electronic publishing. Text is mounted on a
 database, accessed by geneticists, students, and critics who respond
 directly via electronic mail to the author. In this case, a computerized
 textbook is the end result but one which constantly changes to reflect
 new advances in the field. Funding from the National Library of
 Medicine has supported this project.

         A final area where electronic publishing activities are underway
 is in the academic publishing community. Two examples of activities
 include efforts in the high energy physics and mathematics
 communities. A preprint database in high energy physics has been
 maintained for fifteen years by a university research facility with
 approximately 200 preprints added each week to the database of
 over 200,000 article citations. Instant Math Preprints (IMP), a new
 initiative that will maintain a searchable database of abstracts, will
 permit electronic file transfer of the full text of preprints. The project
 will be accessible via ten universities and "e-math," the American
 Mathematical Society's electronic service. The value to the research
 community of timely and effective exchange of research results will
 be enormous.

         There are two predominant reasons that pilot projects and
 experiments such as these have been possible, have flourished, and
 been successful. First, a high value has been placed and a significant
 investment has been made in carefully constructed cooperative
 programs in the library community to advance research through the
 sharing of resources. The creation and support of bibliographic
 utilities such as the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN)
 and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) has resulted in access
 by scholars to enormous databases of bibliographic records and
 information. Cooperative programs have been supported and
 encouraged by federal programs such as the Library Services and
 Construction Act of 1964 and the Higher Education Act of 1965. The
 Higher Education Act and in particular Title II-C and Title II-D
 programs have emphasized the sharing of resources between all
 types of libraries and users, and provided needed funds for support
 of technological innovations and developments. These programs have
 also promoted equality of access to information, ensuring that those
 collections housed in major research institutions, be broadly
 accessible.

         The second reason that libraries have succeeded in advancing
 the exchange of information resources is the effective use of
 technologies to promote access. Most, if not all of these cooperative
 programs, are dependent upon networks in part, as the means to
 identify and share information resources. What will be required as
 more resources become available through the Internet will be the
 development of network directories. These directories will assist
 users in learning of what resources are available and how to access
 them. Provision of these electronic resources and the development of
 the ensuing access tools such as directories are already presenting
 many challenges to library and information science professionals and
 will require continuing attention if the NREN is to succeed.

         As a consequence, the needed infrastructure to connect a
 diversity of users to a wide array of information resources is in place
 today. Networks interconnecting information resources and users
 throughout all parts of the United States and internationally, have
 been operational and effective for a number of years. A key factor
 that will permit the NREN to be a success is that much of the
 infrastructure is already in place. There are networks that
 interconnect academic institutions - public and private, industrial
 users, and state consortiums, that include library networks and that
 do not distinguish between rural and urban, academic and K-12. The
 NREN vision must continue to encourage and demand enhanced
 interconnectivity between all users and all types of institutions.

         As Congress considers how to best design the NREN to meet the
 needs of the research and academic communities, it will be important
 more than ever to include the goals and objectives of ongoing
 programs. In a time when there are 1,000 books published
 internationally each day, 9,600 different journals are published
 annually in the United States, the total of all printed knowledge is
 doubling every eight years, electronic information is just beginning
 to be exploited, and financial and funding resources are shrinking, it
 is critical that the research and education communities with
 continued federal support, strive for increased connectivity between
 all types of libraries and users.  This connectivity will result in
 improved productivity and a strengthening of U.S. position in the
 international marketplace.

         S. 272 should provide the necessary framework to achieve this
 enhanced connectivity. S.272 should build upon existing programs
 and identify new means to permit information resources to be
 broadly available to the education and research communities.
 Ensuring connectivity through multiple types of libraries, throughout
 the United States, is a critical component to several existing statutes
 and should be included in NREN legislation. By so doing, the
 legislation would leverage existing federal, state, and local programs.

         As libraries and users alike employ information technologies to
 access information resources, new opportunities and applications will
 develop that exploit the wealth of information and knowledge
 available in research libraries. Network applications today primarily
 focus on the provision of access to resources such as books, journals,
 and online files. Electronic publishing ventures are just beginning. In
 the years ahead, scholars and researchers will be able to access and
 use those research materials and collections generally unaccessible
 but of extreme research value including photographs, satellite data,
 archival data, videos and movies, sound recordings, slides of
 paintings and other artifacts, and more. Access to and manipulation
 of these information resources advances scholarship and research,
 and scholars will expect a network with the capacity and capabilities
 to achieve effective access. Clearly, to be successful, effective, and of
 use to the academic and research communities, the NREN must be
 designed to nurture and accommodate both the current as well as
 future yet unknown uses of these valuable information resources.



              United States General Accounting Office
 Testimony
 GAO


 Supercomputing in Industry


 For Release on Delivery
 Expected at 2:00 p.m. EST Tuesday, March 5, 1991


 Statement for the record by
 Jack L. Brock, Jr.,
 Director Government Information and Financial Management Issues
 Information Management and Technology Division



 Before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space
 Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
 United States Senate


 GA/T-IMTEC-91-3


 Messrs. Chairman and Members of the Committee and Subcommittee:


 I am pleased to submit this statement for the record, as part of the
 Committee's hearing on the proposed High Performance Computing
 Act of 1991. The information contained in this statement reflects the
 work that GAO has conducted to date on its review of how industries
 are using supercomputers to improve productivity, reduce costs, and
 develop new products. At your request, this work has focused on
 four specific industries--oil, aerospace, automobile, and
 pharmaceutical/chemical--and was limited to determining how these
 industries use supercomputers and to citing reported benefits.

 We developed this material through an extensive review of
 published documents and through interviews with knowledgeable
 representatives within the selected industries. In some cases, our
 access to proprietary information was restricted. Since this statement
 for the record reports on work still in progress, it may not fully
 characterize industry use of supercomputers, or the full benefits
 likely to accrue from such use.

 BACKGROUND

 A supercomputer, by its most basic definition, is the most powerful
 computer available at a given time. While the term supercomputer
 does not refer to a particular design or type of computer, the basic
 design philosophy emphases vector or parallel processing,

 [Footnote 1: Vector processing provides the capability of operating on
 arrays, or vectors, of information simultaneously. With parallel
 processing, multiple parts of a program are executed concurrently.
 Massively parallel supercomputers are currently defined as those
 having over 1,000 processors.]

 aimed at achieving high levels of calculation very rapidly. Current
 supercomputers, ranging in cost from $1 million to $30 million, are
 capable of performing hundreds of millions or even billions of
 calculations each second. Computations requiring many hours or days
 on more conventional computers may be accomplished in a few
 minutes or seconds on a supercomputer.

 The unique computational power of supercomputers makes it
 possible to find solutions to critical scientific and engineering
 problems that cannot be dealt with satisfactorily by theoretical,
 analytical, or experimental means. Scientists and engineers in many
 fields-- including aerospace, petroleum exploration, automobile
 design and testing, chemistry, materials science, and electronics--
 emphasize the value of supercomputers in solving complex problems.
 Much of this work centers around scientific visualization, a technique
 allowing researchers to plot masses of raw data in three dimensions
 to create visual images of objects or systems under study. This
 enables researchers to model abstract data, allowing them to "see"
 and thus comprehend more readily what the data reveal.

 While still relatively limited in use, the number of supercomputers
 has risen dramatically over the last decade. In the early l980s, most
 of the 20 to 30 supercomputers in existence were operated by
 government agencies for such purposes as weapons research and
 weather modeling. Today about 280 supercomputers

 [Footnote 2: This figure includes only high-end supercomputers such
 as those manufactured by Cray Research, Inc. Including International
 Business Machines (IBM) mainframes with vector facilities would
 about double this number.]

 are in use worldwide. Government (including defense-related
 industry) remains the largest user, although private industry has
 been the fastest growing user segment for the past few years and is
 projected to remain so.

 The industries we are examining enjoy a reputation for using
 supercomputers to solve complex problems for which solutions might
 otherwise be unattainable. Additionally, they represent the largest
 group of supercomputer users. Over one-half of the 280
 supercomputers in operation are being used for oil exploration;
 aerospace modeling, testing, and development; automotive testing
 and design; and chemical and pharmaceutical applications.

 THE OIL INDUSTRY

 The oil industry uses supercomputers to better determine the
 location of oil reservoirs and to maximize the recovery of oil from
 those reservoirs. Such applications have become increasingly
 important because of the low probability of discovering large oil
 fields in the continental United States. New oil fields are often small,
 hard to find, and located in harsh environments making exploration
 and production difficult. The oil industry uses two key
 supercomputer applications, seismic data processing and reservoir
 simulation, to aid in oil exploration and production. These
 applications have saved money and increased oil production.

 Seismic data processing increases the probability of determining
 where oil reservoirs are located by analyzing large volumes of
 seismic data

 [Footnote 3:  Seismic data are gathered by using sound-recording
 devices to measure the speed at which vibrations travel through the
 earth.]

 and producing two and three- dimensional images of subsurface
 geology. Through the study of these images, geologists can better
 understand the characteristics of the area, and determine the
 probability of oil being present. More accurately locating oil
 reservoirs is important because the average cost of drilling a well is
 estimated at about $5.5 million and can reach as high as $50 million.
 Under the best of circumstances, most test wells do not result in
 enough oil to make drilling cost-effective. Thus, avoiding drilling one
 dry well can save millions of dollars. The industry representatives
 who agreed to share cost estimates with us said that supercomputer
 use in seismic data processing reduces the number of dry wells
 drilled by about 10 percent, at a savings of hundreds of millions of
 dollars over the last 5 years.

 Reservoir simulation is used to increase the amount of oil that can be
 extracted from a reservoir. Petroleum reservoirs are accumulations
 of oil, water, and gas within the pores of rocks, located up to several
 miles beneath the earth's surface. Reservoir modeling predicts the
 flow of fluids in a reservoir so geologists can better determine how
 oil should be extracted.  Atlantic Richfield and Company (ARCO)
 representatives estimate that reservoir simulation used for the oil
 field at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska--the largest in production in the United
 States--has resulted in increased oil production worth billions of
 dollars.

 THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY

 Engineers and researchers also use supercomputers to design,
 develop, and test aerospace vehicles and related equipment. In
 particular, computational fluid dynamics, which is dependent upon
 supercomputing, enables engineers to simulate the flow of air and
 fluid around proposed design shapes and then modify designs
 accordingly. The simulations performed using this application are
 valuable in eliminating some of the traditional wind tunnel tests
 used in evaluating the aerodynamics of airplanes. Wind tunnels are
 expensive to build and maintain, require costly construction of
 physical models, and cannot reliably detect certain airflow
 phenomena. Supercomputer-based design has thus resulted in
 significant time and cost savings, as well as better designs, for the
 aerospace industry.

 Lockheed Aerospace used computational fluid dynamics on a
 supercomputer to develop a computer model of the Advanced
 Tactical Fighter for the U.S. Air Force. By using this approach,
 Lockheed was able to display a full-vehicle computer model of the
 fighter after approximately 5 hours of supercomputer processing
 time. This approach allowed Lockheed to reduce the amount of wind-
 tunnel testing by 80 hours, resulting in savings of about half a
 million dollars.

 The Boeing Aircraft Company used a Cray 1S-2000 supercomputer to
 redesign the 17-year old 737-200 aircraft in the early 1980s. Aiming
 to create a more fuel-efficient plane, Boeing decided to make the
 body design longer and replace the engines with larger but more
 efficient models. To determine the appropriate placement of these
 new engines, Boeing used the supercomputer to simulate a wind-
 tunnel test. The results of this simulation--which were much more
 detailed than would have been available from an actual wind-tunnel
 test--allowed the engineers to solve the engine placement problem
 and create a more fuel-efficient aircraft.

 THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

 Automobile manufacturers have been using supercomputers
 increasingly since 1985 as a design tool to make cars safer, lighter,
 more economical, and better built. Further, the use of
 supercomputers has allowed the automobile industry to achieve
 these design improvements at significant savings.

 One supercomputer application receiving increasing interest is
 automobile crash-simulation. To meet federally mandated crash-
 worthiness requirements, the automobile industry crashes large
 numbers of pre-prototype vehicles head-on at 30 miles per hour into
 rigid barriers. Vehicles for such tests can cost from $225,000 to
 $750,000 each. Crash simulation using supercomputers provides
 more precise engineering information, however, than is typically
 available from actually crashing vehicles. In addition, using
 supercomputers to perform this type of structural analysis reduces
 the number of actual crash tests required by 20 to 30 percent, saving
 the companies millions of dollars each year. Simulations such as this
 were not practical prior to the development of vector
 supercomputing because of the volume and complexity of data
 involved.

 Automobile companies credit supercomputers with improving
 automobile design in other ways as well. For example, Chrysler
 Corporation engineers use linear analysis and weight optimization
 software on a Cray X-MP supercomputer to improve the design of its
 vehicles. The resulting designs--which, according to a Chrysler
 representative, would not have been practical without a
 supercomputer--will allow Chrysler to achieve an annual reduction
 of about $3 million in the cost of raw materials for manufacturing its
 automobiles. In addition, one automobile's body was made 10
 percent more rigid (which will improve ride and handling) and 11
 percent lighter (which will improve fuel efficiency). According to the
 Chrysler representative, this is typical of improvements that are
 being achieved through the use of its supercomputer.

 THE CHEMICAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES

 Supercomputers play a growing role in the chemical and
 pharmaceutical industries, although their use is still in its infancy.
 From computer-assisted molecular design to synthetic materials
 research, companies in these fields increasingly rely on
 supercomputers to study critical design parameters and more
 quickly and accurately interpret and refine experimental results.
 Industry representative told us that, as a result, the use of
 supercomputing will result in new discoveries that may not have
 been possible otherwise.

 The pharmaceutical industry is beginning to use supercomputers as a
 research tool in developing new drugs. Development of a new drug
 may require up to 30,000 compounds being synthesized and
 screened, at a cost of about $5,000 per synthesis. As such, up to $150
 million, before clinical testing and other costs, may he invested in
 discovering a new drug, according to an E.I. du Pont de Nemours and
 Company representative. Scientists can now eliminate some of this
 testing by using simulation on a supercomputer. The supercomputer
 analyzes and interprets complex data obtained from experimental
 measurements. Then, using workstations, scientists can construct
 three-dimensional models of the large, complex human proteins and
 enzymes on the computer screen and rotate these images to gain
 clues regarding biological activity and reactions to various potential
 drugs.

 Computer simulations are also being used in the chemical industry to
 replace or enhance more traditional laboratory measurements. Du
 Pont is currently working to develop replacements for
 chlorofluorocarbons, compounds used as coolants for refrigerators
 and air conditioners, and as cleansing agents for electronic
 equipment. These compounds are generally thought to contribute to
 the ozone depletion of the atmosphere and are being phased out. Du
 Pont is designing a new process to produce substitute compounds in
 a safe and cost- effective manner. These substitutes will be more
 reactive in the atmosphere and subject to faster decomposition. Du
 Pont is using a supercomputer to calculate the thermodynamic data
 needed for developing the process. These calculations can be
 completed by the supercomputer in a matter of days, at an
 approximate cost of $2,000 to $5,000. Previously, such tests--using
 experimental measurements conducted in a laboratory--would
 require up to 3 months to conduct, at a cost of about $50,000. Both
 the cost and time required would substantially limit the amount of
 testing done.

 BARRIERS TO GREATER USE OF SUPERCOMPUTERS

 These examples demonstrate the significant advantages in terms of
 cost savings, product improvements, and competitive opportunity
 that can he realized through supercomputer use. However, such use
 is still concentrated in only a few industries. Our industry contacts
 identified significant, interrelated barriers that individually or
 collectively, limit more widespread use of supercomputers.

 Cost.  Supercomputers are expensive. A supercomputer's cost of
 between $1 million and $30 million does not include the cost of
 software development, maintenance, or trained staff.


 Cultural resistance.  Simulation on supercomputers can not only
 reduce the physical testing, measurement, and experimentation, but
 can provide information that cannot otherwise be attained. For many
 scientists and managers this represents a dramatic break with past
 training, experience, generally accepted methods, or common
 doctrine. For some, such a major shift in research methodology is
 difficult to accept. These new methods are simply resisted or ignored.

 Lack of application software. Supercomputers can be difficult to use.
 For many industry applications, reliable software has not yet been
 developed. This is particularly true for massively parallel
 supercomputers.

 Lack of trained scientists in supercomputing. Between 1970 and
 1985, university students and professors performed little of their
 research on supercomputers. For 15 years, industry hired students
 from universities who did not bring supercomputing skills and
 attitudes into their jobs. Now, as a result, many high-level scientists,
 engineers, and managers in industry have little or no knowledge of
 supercomputing.

 In conclusion, our work to date suggests that the use of
 supercomputers has made substantial contributions in key U.S.
 industries. While our statement has referred to benefits related to
 cost reduction and time savings, we believe that supercomputers will
 increasingly be used to gain substantive competitive advantage.
 Supercomputers offer the potential--still largely untapped--to
 develop new and better products more quickly. This potential is just
 beginning to be explored, as are ways around the barriers that
 prevent supercomputers from being more fully exploited.






                               EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
                            OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
                                    WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506








              HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATIONS

                                           TESTIMONY
                                               OF
                                       D. ALLAN BROMLEY
                                            DIRECTOR
                            OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY

                                           BEFORE THE
                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SPACE
            COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
                                          U.S. SENATE

                                         MARCH 5, 1991


 Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee:

 Thank you for giving me the opportunity, as Director of the Office of
 Science and Technology Policy, to discuss with you the critically
 important issue of high performance computing and communications.

 On February 4, 1991, the President announced his proposed budget
 for Fiscal year 1992. Among the major new R&D programs in the
 budget is a Presidential initiative on high performance computing
 and communications, which is described in the report Grand
 Challenges:  High Performance Computing and Communications. The
 report, which was released on February 5, 1991, was produced by a
 Working Group on High Performance Computing and Communications
 under the Committee on Physical, Mathematical, and Engineering
 Sciences, which is one of seven umbrella interagency committees
 under the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and
 Technology (FCCSET). A copy of the report is attached.

 The overall goals of the high performance computing and
 communications initiative are symbolized by a set of what are called
 "grand challenges," problems of important scientific and social value
 whose solution could he advanced by applying high performance
 computing techniques and resources. These include global climate
 modeling, mapping the human genome, understanding the nature of
 new materials, problems applicable to national security needs, and
 the design of ever more sophisticated computers.  Many such
 problems can be addressed through high performance computing and
 communications, including ones that are impossible to foresee today.

 The initiative represents a full integration of component programs in
 a number of Federal agencies in high performance computing and
 computer communications networks.  It integrates and coordinates
 agency programs and builds on those programs where appropriate.
 The initiative proposes to increase funding in these programs by 30
 percent, from the $489 million appropriated in FY 1991 to $638
 millions in FY 1992.

                                 History of the Initiative

 The high performance computing and communications initiative can
 trace its formative years to the early 1980s, when the scientific
 community and federal agencies recognized the need for advanced
 computing in a wide range of scientific disciplines. As fields of
 science progressed, the quantity of data, the number of databases,
 and need for more sophisticated modeling and analysis all grew. The
 Lax Report of 1982 provided an opportunity to open discussions on
 the need for supercomputer centers beyond those previously at the
 Department of Energy's national laboratories. Subsequently, the
 availability of such resources to the basic research community
 expanded -. for example, through the establishment of the National
 Science Foundation's and NASA's supercomputing centers.

 In 1982 a FCCSET committee examined the status of supercomputing
 in the United States and reviewed the role of the federal government
 in the development of this technology.  In 1985 this committee
 recommended government action necessary to retain technological
 supremacy in the development and use of supercomputers in the
 United States.  Subsequent planning resulted in a series of workshops
 conducted in 1987 and in a set of reports that set forth a research
 and development strategy.

 A synthesis of the studies, reports, and planning was published by
 OSTP in the report entitled The Federal High Performance Computing
 Program. which was issued on September 8, 1989.  The initiative in
 the FY 1992 budget represents an implementation by the
 participating agencies of the plan embodied in that report,
 appropriately updated to recognize accomplishments made to date.
 The report described a five-year program to be undertaken by four
 agencies -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the
 National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the
 National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  Four additional
 partners have since joined the program -- the National Library of
 Medicine within the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental
 Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Standards and
 Technology and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
 within the Department of Commerce - and they have added
 considerable strength to the overall program.

 The planning and implementation of the HPCC program have been
 the result of extraordinarily effective collaboration by the
 participating agencies using the FCCSET forum.  It was developed
 alter several years of discussions among the agencies and hundreds
 of hours of negotiating and interactions between all federal
 government agencies with an interest in computing. Agencies have
 realigned and enhanced their HPCC programs, coordinated their
 activities with other agencies, and shared common resources.  The
 final product represents a complex balance of relationships and
 agreements forged among the agencies over a number of years.

 These agencies have achieved a level of mutual trust, cooperation,
 and synergism that is remarkable in or out of government -- and not
 easily achieved.  In addition, the success of this effort demonstrates
 the advantages to be gained by using the FCCSET process to
 coordinate areas of science and technology that cut across the
 missions of several federal agencies.  The FCCSET interagency process
 maintains the necessary flexibility and balance of a truly integrated
 program as the science and technology evolve, and it allows
 additional agencies to identity opportunities and participate in a
 given program.

                                 Description of the Initiative

 The HPCC initiative is a program for research and development in all
 leading-edge areas of computing.  The program has four major
 components:  (1) High Performance Computing Systems, (2)
 Advanced Software Technology and Algorithms, (3) a National
 Research and Education Network (NREN), and (4) Basic Research and
 Human Resources. The program seeks a proper balance among the
 generic goals of technology development, technology dissemination
 and application, and improvements in U.S. productivity and
 industrial competitiveness.  It incorporates general purpose
 advanced computing as well as the challenges ahead in massively
 parallel computing.

 In the development of computing hardware, ambitious goals have
 been set.  The program seeks a thousandfold improvement in useful
 computing capability (to a trillion operations per second).  The focus
 will be on the generic technologies that will prove valuable in many
 different sectors. Where appropriate, projects will be performed on a
 cost-shared basis with industry.

 In software development, the program will focus on the advanced
 software and algorithms that in many applications have become the
 determining factor for exploiting high performance computing and
 communications.  In particular, software must become much more
 user-friendly if we are to provide a much larger fraction of the
 population with access to high performance computing.

 The National Research and Education Network (NREN) would
 dramatically expand and enhance the capabilities of the existing
 interconnected computer networks called the Internet. The overall
 goal is to achieve a hundredfold increase in communications speed
 (to levels of gigabits per second). In addition, the number of "on-
 ramps" and "off-ramps" to the network would he greatly expanded,
 bringing the potential of high performance computing to homes,
 offices, classrooms, and factories.  Such a network could have the
 kind of catalytic effect on our society, companies, and universities
 that the telephone system has had during the twentieth century. A
 new meaning will be given to communication, involving not just the
 transfer of knowledge but a full sharing of resources and capabilities
 that no single site possesses.

 Finally, the HPCC initiative will add significantly to the nation's
 science and technology infrastructure through its impacts on
 education and basic research.  It is my personal view that the
 successful implementation of this program will lay the foundation for
 changes in education at all levels, including the precollege level.

 Of course, no plan is better than its execution, and the execution of
 the HPCC initiative will rely heavily on the synergy that has been
 carefully cultivated among the participating agencies. This synergy
 has been fostered by allowing each agency to do what it does best in
 the way that it does best. Each of the four founding agencies has
 national constituencies and historical strengths.  DARPA, for example,
 will lead in fostering the development of breakthrough system
 technologies, as it has done in the past for time-sharing, network
 operating systems, and RISC architecture. DOE, through its historical
 ties with the national laboratories, has always led in the
 development and use of HPCC technologies and is applying them on
 the cutting-edge of scientific problems. NASA will continue to pursue
 a new wave of space-related and aeronautics problems, such as
 computational aerodynamics, as well as its strength in the collection,
 modeling, simulating, and archiving of space-based environmental
 data. And NSF's close ties with the academic community gives it a
 special expertise in both education and in the coordination and use of
 NREN.

                      Expected Returns of the Initiative

 The high performance computing and communications initiative
 represents a major strategic investment for the nation with both
 economic and social returns.  I personally believe that few
 technology initiatives have the potential to have a greater impact on
 the ways we live and work than does the high performance
 computing and communications initiative.

 The high-performance end of the computer market is relatively
 small, but its influence far transcends its size. The high end is where
 leading-edge technologies and applications are developed. Recent
 history indicates that these developments diffuse so quickly
 throughout the overall market that "superminis" and
 "superworkstations" are no longer contradictions in terms. A federal
 investment in the leading-edge computing technology will speed the
 growth of the overall computer market and may catalyze
 investments on the part of U.S. industry. At the same time,
 supercomputers are not the only important hardware component; we
 shall not forget the importance of the smaller, more widely
 distributed units and their role in the overall system.

 In addition, the HPCC initiative will he a major contributor to meeting
 national needs.  National security, health, transportation, education,
 energy, and environment concerns are all areas that have grown to
 depend on high performance computing and communications in
 essential ways. The dependence will grow as computers become
 more powerful, cheaper, more reliable, and more usable.

 HPCC is also critical for the nation's scientific infrastructure.  The
 electronic computer was born as a scientific tool, and its early
 development was driven by scientific needs.  Business applications
 soon came to dominate its development, but recently there has been
 a renewed focus on computers as an instrument in science. Indeed,
 "computational science," which incorporates modeling, simulation and
 data rendition, is adding a third dimension to experimentation and
 theory as modes of scientific investigation.  In field after field of
 fundamental and applied sciences, problems intractable for either
 theory or experimentation are being successfully attacked with the
 aid of high speed computation.

                    Diffusion of the Initiative's Benefits

 If the HPCC initiative is to realize its full potential, it is not enough
 that it reach its technology goals.  It is equally important that the
 technologies be deployed by the private sector in a timely way to
 result in an acceleration of market growth.  It is likewise insufficient
 for applications to be developed and problems to be solved; in
 addition, the benefits accruing from those solutions must be
 disseminated so as to influence our everyday lives.

 The continued development and use of government-funded high
 performance computing and communications prototypes can have a
 significant positive impact on the potential commercialization of
 these technologies.  In addition, many organizations that cannot
 individually justify the hardware investments will be able to gain
 access to these new computing systems via the new network Thus,
 the knowledge gained through the timely development and use of
 prototype systems and the access provided to them by the network
 will significantly improve the dissemination of the benefits of the
 initiative.

 However, this wide diffusion is not possible by federal action alone.
 The Administration's HPCC initiative will serve the nation best as a
 catalyst for private actions.  Some analysts have suggested that the
 HPCC initiative can spur several hundred billion dollars of GNP
 growth.  If so, it will be because American companies, both large and
 small, are able to deploy the technologies in producing quality goods
 and services.

 Similarly, some predict that NREN will lead to the establishment of a
 truly national high speed network that connects essentially every
 home and every office.  If that happens, it will be because private
 investments are stimulated by government leadership.  Far from
 suppressing or displacing the focus of a free market, the HPCC
 initiative will strengthen them by providing the impetus for vigorous
 private action.

 Congressional Initiatives in High Performance Computing and
 Communications

 The breadth and balance of the high performance computing and
 communications initiative are critical to its success.  The four
 components of the program are carefully balanced, and maintaining
 this balance is the most important priority in the program.  For
 example, powerful computers without adequate software,
 networking, and capable people would not result in successful
 applications. A program that created only high performance
 networks would not satisfy the need for greater computing
 performance to take advantage of the networks and solve important
 problems.

 Similarly, the Administration's initiative relies on substantial
 participation by industry and government laboratories to overcome
 barriers to technology transfer.  Cooperative government, industry,
 and university activities will yield the maximum benefits derived
 from moving new technologies from basic discoveries to the
 marketplace.

 The legislative proposals pending before the Congress, though well
 intended, do not fully recognize the comprehensive interagency
 effort brought about through years of collaboration.  For example, S.
 272 only specifies the program for two of the four major agencies
 included in the high performance computing and communications
 initiative.  In addition, S. 272 incorrectly specifies the roles of the
 agencies; many of the requirements of the legislation have, in fact,
 already been accomplished; and the agencies have moved on to
 further scientific and technical challenges.  The legislation, in effect,
 may detract from the existing programs by limiting the activities of
 the agencies and by causing an unintended revision of complex
 relationships forged between the agencies.  For these reasons, I
 strongly believe that FCCSET activities should not be codified in law.

 I am concerned that legislative action not limit the flexibility of what
 is by nature an extremely dynamic process. When research plans are
 developed to implement interagency programs, those plans are
 inevitably dynamic, just as the research efforts they describe are
 dynamic and evolving.  If research plans are codified in law, it
 suggests that the research is static. This is particularly a concern with
 high performance computing and communications, where the pace of
 technological change is dramatic. As an example of a fast-moving
 research opportunity, I might mention a joint Los Alamos National
 Laboratory/DARPA effort that successfully applied an innovative
 massively parallel Connection Machine Computer system to a nuclear
 weapons safety code to gain new and valuable insights into the
 safety of the nuclear weapons inventory. Another example occurred
 in the last year at the National Library of Medicine's National Center
 for Biotechnology Information, where researchers developed a new
 fast algorithm for sequence similarity searches of protein and nucleic
 acid databases. This was very helpful in the identification of a gene
 causing von Rocklinghausen's neurofibromatosis.  This is a major
 breakthrough in the understanding of this bewildering disorder that
 affects about 1 in 3,000 people. On the networking front, significant
 achievements have also been made. For example, the NSFNET has
 increased in speed a thousandfold (from 56 kilobits per second to 45
 megabits per second) since 1988.

 S. 272 has as its focal point the issuing of a plan that would delineate
 agency roles and include specific tasks. However, the
 Administration's initiative and the accompanying FCCSET report
 satisfy these demands for items to be incorporated in the planning
 phase.  S. 272 further calls for the establishment of an advisory
 panel to provide additional input into the plan. But many of the
 agencies already have current advisory panels, and private sector
 participation is fully anticipated in the Administration's initiative as
 agency programs move forward to implementation. Moreover, the
 oversight role of the Congress, including the hearings scheduled this
 week in the House and Senate, serve as important elements in the
 fine tuning of the program.

 The National Research and Education Network described in the
 initiative addresses the need for greatly enhanced computer
 communications highlighted in the legislation. The initiative also
 seeks to be comprehensive in addressing the roles of the various R&D
 agencies -- for example, by allowing other agencies to join the effort
 as appropriate.

 It bears emphasis that the Administration's initiative uses the
 existing statutory, programmatic, budgetary, and authorizing
 authorities of the agencies and departments involved in the
 initiative, including OSTP. The funding levels necessary to proceed
 with this effort have been transmitted to the Congress in the
 President's request and are clearly reflected in the budgets of each of
 the eight agencies involved in the initiative. The Congress already
 has the ability to positively affect the high performance computing
 program of the federal government through existing authorizations
 and appropriations.

 FCCSET is a very important mechanism within the Executive Branch
 for reviewing and coordinating research and development activities
 that cut across the missions of more than one federal agency. Unlike
 the committees in the Legislative Branch, each of which has discrete
 authority for oversight, interagency committees within FCCSET are
 forums for discussion, analysis, collaboration, and consensus building.
 The member agencies then have the responsibility for implementing
 the program and proceeding with the necessary contracting,
 budgeting, and so on developed through the interagency process.

 Several legislative vehicles, in addition to S. 272, have been
 introduced that seek to endorse and advance the Administration's
 initiative.  I welcome the Congress's interest and intentions in high
 performance computing and communications.  I am confident that by
 working together we can have a significant impact on the nation's
 future through these efforts, and I welcome suggestions from
 Congress to improve the current initiative.

 I might suggest that hearings to receive the views of all the various
 communities involved with this proposal and a positive endorsement
 of this program by Congress would be of great assistance in
 advancing high performance computing and communications in this
 country. Positive action on the requested appropriations will ensure
 that this extensive interagency program can go forward.

 Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, let me conclude by
 saying that I look forward to working cooperatively with you on this
 initiative. We share the same goals, and I am confident that we can
 reach a consensus on how best to achieve them.



                      CONVEX COMPUTER CORPORATION
                          WRITTEN STATEMENT
                            Presented to
                             U.S. Senate
                Commerce, Science and Transportation
            Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space



 CONVEX supports S. 272, the High-Performance Computing Act of
 1991, as we believe it will assist U.S.  industry in maintaining
 leadership in computing technology.  We strongly believe this
 legislation can positively contribute to one of the biggest threats
 facing the United States today:  the loss of our international
 competitiveness in all technology related businesses.  In addition, it
 will directly stimulate the supercomputing industry.

 Europe and Japan have targeted information technologies for
 particular attention, and unless decisive steps are taken to ensure
 our continued leadership, the U.S.  could be surpassed in a technology
 field that we largely pioneered and which is vital to our economic
 future.

 The real American competitiveness question involves making our
 nation's industries competitive.  The use of supercomputers is
 mandatory to maintaining America's competitive edge in all of our
 key industries, such as aerospace, automotive, electronics,
 pharmaceuticals, petroleum, etc. -- not just in supercomputing
 manufacturing.

 We believe the actions called for in S. 272 -- particularly the
 acceleration of the development of computer systems and
 subsystems, the stimulation of research on software technology, and
 the application of high-performance computing to "Grand Challenges"
 - - are not only appropriate goals, but vital to maintaining the U.S.
 lead in supercomputers and utilizing supercomputer technology in
 our high-tech industries and research.

 Supercomputers are the fundamental building blocks that contribute
 to almost all disciplines across the broadest spectrum of science and
 technology.  In the 1990's, the way America can stay competitive is
 literally to put supercomputing in the hands of the "masses."
 Supercomputers are to the modern technologist what the invention
 of the microscope was to biologists and the telescope was to
 astronomers.  In fact, supercomputers enable scientists and
 engineers to solve problems for things that are too small, too large,
 too quick, too slow, or too dangerous to observe directly. This use in
 industry results in new products that are more innovative, safer, and
 get to market more quickly.  Their use in research results in
 fundamental breakthroughs in science that change how we see the
 world.  The supercomputer is the one common tool across all U.S.
 scientific and technological activities that, if put in the hands of
 engineers and scientists throughout the United States, can
 dramatically sharpen the competitive output of the United States.
 Of course, Japanese industry and research institutions totally
 understand and believe these concepts.  From our perspective, they
 have been the fastest nation to purchase CONVEX's latest technology.
 Until just recently, there were more of CONVEX's top- of-the-line
 supercomputers in Japan than in the United States. American
 researchers and engineers believe these concepts also, but access to
 supercomputer tools has been limited.  S. 272 can be the catalyst to
 change this trend.

 CONVEX's assessment of the competitive position of the high-
 performance computer industry in the U.S. relative to that of Japan is
 as follows:

 The high-performance computer market is an international market
 in which Cray dominates the high-end of the market, and CONVEX
 dominates the mid-range market.   The Japanese computer
 manufacturers, NEC, Fujitsu, and Hitachi, have high performance, fast
 hardware products.  But while this is the case, U.S. high performance
 computer companies currently maintain the lead in supercomputing
 for the following reason:  supercomputing is not about hardware, it's
 about solving complex problems.  The U.S. supercomputer companies
 are ahead of foreign competition because we understand there are
 aspects to supercomputing solutions:

      o    Balanced, high-performance hardware:  There is more to real
 performance than pure megaflops or gigaflops performance.
 Unfortunately, that' s how performance is commonly measured but
 these definitions must be properly interpreted.  There is much more
 to useful performance than peak speed, such as software
 performance, memory performance, and 1/0 performance.  Users
 care only about the performance of their applications -- the
 problems they specifically solve with their machines -- and this type
 of performance is determined by dozens o attributes.  In terms of
 speed, the Japanese have high peak performance, but that's only a
 part of the supercomputing solution.

      o    Software technology -- Operating systems (UNIX) and
 compilers:     Maintaining the lead requires being proficient at
 several software standards. Companies such as CONVEX and Cray
 recognized the emergence of the UNIX standard long ago and
 designed their machines for UNIX -- now considered a requirement
 in supercomputing. Japanese systems have historically been based on
 IBM standards and only now are attempting to migrate to UNIX. Also
 superior compiler technology is critical to computing performance
 and productivity.  American companies and research institutions lead
 in this areas, as well.

      o    Application specific software:      Most of the supercomputers
 in use today, especially in industry, utilize third-party written
 software applications rather than custom-written software
 applications.  The majority of that third-party software is developed
 by U.S. based organizations.  CONVEX considers having both a broad
 array of application software available on its machines and having
 agreements/relationships with the software developers, as critical
 elements of its competitive strategy and success.  American suppliers
 are leading in this crucial area.

      o    Service and support -- taking care of the customer:  This is a
 critical component in supercomputing solutions. American companies'
 reputations in the area of service and support are superior.
 American suppliers utilize direct sales and support organizations in
 all major markets and, as such, are closer to the customer. Outside of
 Japan, Japanese manufacturers typically use distributors or OEMs for
 sales and customer support.

 It would be naive to believe that U.S. companies will always be able
 to maintain the supercomputer lead for the reasons cited above
 without continual development and diligence in these areas.  The
 Japanese can -- and will, in time -- develop these necessary
 strengths.  Although CONVEX has been selling its supercomputers
 successfully to the Japanese for almost six years now, we also realize
 that when, or if, the Japanese companies decide that the
 price/performance market niche that CONVEX currently dominates is
 a viable and sizable market for Japan, the competitiveness threat
 posed by Japan can become very serious.

 The biggest threats posed by the Japanese to American
 supercomputer companies are:

      o    The size of the big three Japanese companies is over $89
 billion, which provides substantial financial staying power.  This
 gives them the ability to mask the success or lack of success of their
 supercomputer products versus U.S.  supercomputer companies,
 whose existence relies solely on the success of their supercomputers.

      o    Furthermore, they can afford to not be profitable in the
 supercomputer market segment for a very long period of time and
 can buy market share by excessive and unreasonable discounting,
 while public U.S. companies are forced to live by quarter to quarter
 reporting, which represents the results of a single technology focus.

      o    The big three Japanese computer companies also dominate the
 semiconductor industry, including advanced semiconductor research
 and development required to build supercomputers.

      o    The cost of capital differs substantially for U.S. versus
 Japanese companies.

      In light of these factors, staying competitive in today's global
 supercomputer market will take a concerted effort by American
 companies, as well as cooperation and constructive stimulation by
 government.  Certainly, the High-Performance Computing Act of
 1991 will be a positive contribution in this direction.

 Comments on the bill. S. 272

 General Comments

 CONVEX enthusiastically supports this legislation and commends it to
 you for your favorable consideration and swift passage in the House.
 We fully support the idea of a "National High-Performance
 Computing Program." There are several provisions of the bill on
 which I would like to comment and highlight.

 The High-Performance Computing Advisory Panel

 The federal government has played a prominent role in the
 American supercomputing success story and S. 272 again
 demonstrates this leadership.  In several areas of the bill,
 cooperation between government and industry is called for to review
 progress made in implementing the plan and making necessary
 revisions.  In particular, the bill calls for the establishment of a High-
 Performance Computing Advisory Panel consisting of representatives
 from industry and academia to assist with these tasks.  I want to
 highlight this concept as being extremely important to achieving the
 objectives of the bill.  The results of the expenditures for equipment
 and research called for by the bill must ultimately be the
 development of competitively superior commercial products. The
 strategic plan that is put into place by this bill should have this as a
 fundamental objective.  Government is better qualified for some
 aspects of the task, and industry is better qualified for others.
 Partnership between the two will allow the plan to utilize the best
 capabilities of both.  CONVEX has exposure to applications, research
 and product developments occurring all over the world, and in the
 broadest of scientific areas.  We volunteer to help in whatever ways
 we can.

 The National Research and Education Network (NREN)

 CONVEX fully supports the bill's provision calling for the creation of a
 multi-gigabit-per-second National Research and Education Network
 (NREN).  It is our perspective that in the past, too much emphasis
 was placed on providing limited access to too few centralized
 machines.  Supercomputing must be made available to, and meet the
 needs of, a broad base of users through widely distributed
 supercomputer systems placed closer to the ultimate user. This
 would not supplant the centralized machines, but rather complement
 them.

 I suggest that in establishing NREN, it should not only be envisioned
 as a multi-gigabit per second backbone network, connecting only a
 small number of very high-speed, centralized computer systems.
 Let's think of it as a distributed network of computing and
 telecommunications services, serving the widest possible number of
 scientists and engineers from government. industry and academia.
 The National Science Foundation's national supercomputer centers
 represent a case in point.  The program has been a success, but we
 can learn from what those users are additionally asking for:
 supercomputing close to the user.  Let's supplement and complement
 the national supercomputer centers with affordable, open, accessible
 supercomputing facilities, available in departments and dedicated to
 products across the nation.  Let's put a broad range of
 supercomputers, distributed data bases, and other research and
 production facilities, in the very laps of those who need them to help
 maintain and regain America's preeminence in many disciplines.

 Software

 In the last ten years, only about 300 high-end supercomputers have
 been sold by U.S.  companies to industry and to research institutions.
 From CONVEX alone, over 600 high-performance computing systems
 have been shipped in only five years.  American industry needs
 distributed, affordable supercomputing power to remain competitive.
 These companies, large and small, are voting with their checkbooks
 for this means of providing supercomputing. They are using
 supercomputing in production environments, not just in their
 research laboratories.  They need supercomputers to bring new and
 improved products to market faster.  Supercomputers are a valued
 competitive weapon for all of these companies.

 The full utility of supercomputers can only be reached through
 software.  The sophisticated supercomputing user community
 desperately needs improved software development tools, computer-
 assisted software engineering (CASE) capabilities, and better
 algorithmic methods. With this improved state-of-the-art software,
 we can move forward with attacks on the Grand challenges
 enumerated in the bill.

 CONVEX wholeheartedly supports the software tasks and goals of the
 bill.  Care should be taken to ensure that resources are not wasted by
 reinventing what may already exist in industry or somewhere in the
 world.  ~t' s concentrate on improving software technology, but
 adhering to industry standards wherever possible, and avoiding
 proliferating proprietary solutions to software problems.

 Basic Research and Education

 CONVEX strongly supports the provisions of the bill in the areas of
 basic research and education.  Only the largest and richest
 corporations can afford to have very much of their resources
 dedicated to basic research.  Most of the industry, and I count
 CONVEX in this group, must use its limited research and development
 resources in the development and production of the next generations
 of our commercial products.  So we need a fertile source of basic
 research if the supercomputer industry and the nation are to
 progress.

 Again, this must be treated as a partnership.  We must create
 effective, efficient, fast-acting technology transfer mechanisms so
 that our basic research can be fully utilized.  We. therefore.
 recommend that the bill specifically call for the creation of a
 separate. responsible Technology Transfer Program Office to insure
 that basic research is translated into products to be used to further
 all of our goals.

 In the area of education, the United States needs a great deal of
 assistance to help us remain competitive.  The bill's provisions to
 educate and train additional undergraduate and graduate students in
 software engineering, computer science, and computational science
 and to provide researchers, educators, and students with access to
 high-performance computing are extremely worthwhile. However,
 the intent of the bill should be applied across the board in the
 supercomputing industry and should include mechanical engineers,
 packaging engineers, chemical engineers and others.

 Summary

 In summary, I recommend this bill to you.  The amount of funding
 called for by this bill is indeed small when compared to the
 significant economic benefit the program will bring to U.S. industrial
 competitiveness.  It is essential that the United States remain
 aggressive in the area of supercomputer technology.  This bill will
 combine the resources of U.S. industry, government, and universities
 to meet the challenge of foreign competition.


 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.




                                 STATEMENT OF SENATOR AL GORE
                           TUESDAY, MARCH 5 HEARING ON S. 272,
                        THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ACT OF 1991


        Today, the Science Subcommittee is considering S. 272, the High-
 Performance Computing Act.  This bill will ensure that the United
 States stays at the leading edge in computer technology.  It would
 roughly double the Federal government's investment in research and
 development on new supercomputers, more advanced software, and
 high-speed computer networks. Most importantly, it would create a
 National Research and Education Network, the NREN, which would
 connect more than one million people at more than a thousand
 colleges, universities, laboratories, and hospitals throughout the
 country, giving them access to computing power and information
 resources unavailable anywhere today.

        These technologies and this network represent our economic
 future.  They are the smokestack industries of today's Information
 Age.  We talk a lot now about jobs and economic development; about
 pulling our country out of recession and into renewal.  Our ability to
 meet the economic challenges of the Information Age and beyond --
 tough challenges from real competitors around the globe -- will rest
 in large measure on our ability to maintain and strengthen an
 already threatened lead in these technologies and industries.

        I have been advocating legislation such as this for more than one
 dozen years because I strongly believe that it is critical for our
 country to develop the best scientists, the best science, the fastest,
 most powerful computers, and then, to ensure access to these
 technologies to as many people as possible so as many people as
 possible will benefit from them.  This legislation will help us do that.
 Every year, there are new advocates.  This year, finally, President
 Bush is among them, including his budget for Fiscal Year 1992, $149
 million in new funding to support these technologies.

        We cannot afford to wait or, to put off this challenge. Not if we
 care about jobs, economic development, or our ability to hold our
 own in world markets.

        During the last thirty years, computer technology has improved
 exponentially, faster than technology in any other field.  Computers
 just keep getting faster, more powerful, and more inexpensive.
 According to one expert, if automobile technology had improved as
 much as computer technology has in recent years, a 1991 Cadillac
 would now cruise at 20,000 miles per hour, get 5,000 miles to a
 gallon, and cost only three cents!

        As a result of these amazing advances, computers have gone
 from being expensive, esoteric research tools isolated in the
 laboratory to an integral part of our everyday life. We rely on
 computers at the supermarket, at the bank, in the office, and in our
 schools.  They make our life easier in hundreds of ways.

        Yet the computer revolution is not over.  In fact, according to
 some measures, the price-performance ratio of computers is
 improving even faster now than it has in the past.

        Anyone who has seen a supercomputer in action has a sense of
 what computers could do in the future.  Today, scientists and
 engineers are using supercomputers to design better airplanes,
 understand global warming, find oil fields, and discover safer, more
 effective drugs.  In many cases they can use these machines to mimic
 experiments that would be too expensive or downright impossible in
 real life.  With a supercomputer model, engineers at Ford can
 simulate auto crashes and test new safety features for a fraction of
 the cost and in a fraction of the time it would take to really crash an
 automobile.  And they can observe many more variables, in much
 more detail, than they could with a real test.

        The bill we are considering today is very similar to the first title
 of S. 1067, the High-Performance Computing Act of 1990, which
 passed the Senate unanimously last October. Unfortunately, the
 House was unable to act on the bill before we adjourned.

        It is my hope that we will be able to move this bill quickly this
 year.  There is widespread support in both the House and the Senate.
 In the House, Congressman George Brown, the new chairman of the
 House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, has introduced a
 very similar bill, H.R. 656, which has been cosponsored by
 Congressmen Tim Valentine, Sherwood Boehlert, Norm Mineta, and
 others.  On Thursday, the Science Committee's Subcommittee on
 Science and its Subcommittee on Technology and Competitiveness
 will be holding a hearing on the bill.  I look forward to working with
 my House colleagues to move this bill as quickly as possible.

        This legislation provides for a multi-agency high-performance
 computing research and development program to be coordinated by
 the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP),
 whose director, Dr. D. Allan Bromley, is our first witness today.  The
 primary agencies involved are the National Science Foundation (NSF),
 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the
 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the
 Department of Energy (DOE).  Each of these agencies has experience
 in developing and using high-performance computing technology.

        S. 272 will provide for a well-planned, well-coordinated
 research program which will effectively utilize the talents and
 resources available throughout the Federal research agencies.  In
 addition to NSF, NASA, DOE, and DARPA, this program will involve
 the Department of Commerce (in particular the National Institute of
 Standards and Technology and NOAA), the Department of Health and
 Human Services, the Department of Education, the United States
 Geological Survey, the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental
 Protection Agency, and the Library of Congress, as well.  The
 technology developed under this program will find application
 throughout the Federal government and throughout the country.

        S. 272 will roughly double funding for high-performance
 computing at NSF and NASA during the next five years. Additional
 funding -- more than $1 billion during the next five years -- will also
 be needed to expand research and development programs at DARPA
 and DOE.  Last year, I worked closely with Senators Johnston and
 Domenici on the Energy Committee to pass legislation to authorize a
 DOE High-Performance Computing Program, and I hope to work with
 them and the other members of the Energy Committee to see that
 program authorized and funded in fiscal year 1992. Already, Senator
 Johnston and others have introduced S. 343, which would authorize
 DOE's part of this multi-agency program.

        To fund DOD's part of the program, last year I worked with
 Senators Nunn and Bingaman and others on the Armed Services
 Committee to authorize and appropriate an additional $20 million for
 DARPA's high-performance computing program, money that has been
 put to good use developing more powerful supercomputers and
 faster computer networks.  Advanced computer technology was a
 key ingredient of the allies' success in the Persian Gulf War, but we
 cannot simply rely on existing technology, we must make the
 investment needed to stay at the leading edge.  It is important to
 remember the Patriot missile and the Tomahawk cruise missile rely
 on computers based on technologies developed through Federal
 computer research programs in the 1970's.  The High-Performance
 Computing Act will help ensure the technological lead in weaponry
 that helped us win the war with Iraq and that will improve our
 national security in the future.

        This same technology is improving our economic security by
 helping American scientists and engineers develop new products and
 processes to keep the U.S. competitive in world markets.
 Supercomputers can dramatically reduce the time it takes to design
 and test a new product -- whether it is an airplane, a new drug, or an
 aluminum can.  More computing power means more energy-efficient,
 cheaper products in all sectors of manufacturing.  And that means
 higher profits and more jobs for Americans.

        Perhaps the most important contribution this bill will make to
 our economic security is the National Research and Education
 Network, the cornerstone of the program funded by this bill.  By
 1996, this fiber-optic computer network would connect more than
 one million people at more than one thousand colleges and
 universities in all fifty states, allowing them to send electronic mail,
 share data, access supercomputers, use research facilities such as
 radio telescopes, and log on to data bases containing trillions of bytes
 of information on all sorts of topics.  This network will speed
 research and accelerate technology transfer, so that the discoveries
 made in our university laboratories can be quickly and effectively
 turned into profits for American companies.

        Today, the National Science Foundation runs NSFNET, which
 allows researchers and educators to exchange up to 1.5 million bits of
 data (megabits) per second.  The NREN will be at least a thousand
 times faster, allowing researchers to transmit all the information in
 the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica from coast to coast in seconds.
 With today's networks, it is easy to send documents and data, but
 images and pictures require much faster speeds.  They require the
 NREN, which can carry gigabits, billions of bits, every second.

        With access to computer graphics, researchers throughout the
 country will be able to work together far more effectively than they
 can today.  It will be much easier for teams of researchers at colleges
 throughout the country to work together.  They will be able to see
 the results of their experiments as the data comes in, they will be
 able to share the results of their computer models in real-time, and
 they will be able to brainstorm by teleconference.  William Wulf,
 formerly Assistance Director for Computer and Information Science
 and Engineering at NSF, likes to talk about the "National
 Collaboratory" -- a laboratory without walls which the NREN will
 make possible.  Researchers throughout the country, at colleges and
 labs, large and small, will be able to stay on top of the latest
 advances in their fields.

        The NREN and the other technology funded by S. 272 will also
 provide enormous benefits to American education, at all levels.  By
 most accounts, we are facing a critical shortage of scientific and
 technical talent in the next ten years.  By connecting high schools to
 the NREN, students will be able to share ideas with other high school
 students and with college students and professors throughout the
 country.  Already, some high school students are using the NSFNET to
 access supercomputers, to send electronic mail, and to get data and
 information that just is not available at their schools.  In this way,
 the network can nurture and inspire the next generation of scientists.

        Today, most students using computer networks are studying
 science and engineering, but there are more and more applications in
 other fields, too.  Economists, historians, and literature majors are all
 discovering the power of networking.  In the future, I think we will
 see computers and networks used to teach every subject from
 kindergarten through grad school.  I was recently at MIT, where I
 was briefed on Project Athena, a project to integrate computers and
 networks into almost every course at MIT.  Students use computers
 to play with the laws of physics in computer models, to test airplane
 designs in wind tunnel simulations, to improve their writing skills,
 and to learn foreign languages.  Many of the ideas being developed at
 Project Athena and in hundreds of other experiments elsewhere
 could one day help students and teachers throughout the country.

        The library community has been at the forefront in using
 computer and networking technology in education.  For years, they
 have had electronic card catalogues which allow students to track
 down books in seconds.  Now they are developing electronic text
 systems which will store books in electronic form.  When coupled to
 a national network like the NREN, such a "Digital Library" could be
 used by students and educators throughout the country, in
 underfunded urban schools and in isolated rural school districts,
 where good libraries are few and far between.

        I recently spoke to the American Library Association annual
 meeting in Chicago and heard many librarians describe how the
 NREN could transform their lives.  They are excited about the new
 opportunities made possible by this technology.

        The technology developed for the NREN will pave the way for
 high-speed networks to our homes.  It will give each and everyone of
 us access to oceans of electronic information, let us use
 teleconferencing to talk face-to-face to anyone anywhere, and
 deliver advanced, digital programming even more sophisticated and
 stunning than the HDTV available today.  Other countries, Japan,
 Germany, and others, are spending billions of install optical fiber to
 the home, to take full advantage of this technology.

        With this bill we can help shape the future -- shape it for the
 better.  This is an investment in our national security and our
 economic security which we cannot afford not to make.  For that
 reason I was very glad to see the Administration propose a High-
 Performance Computing and Communications Initiative, a program
 very similar to the program outlined in S. 272.  I intend to work
 closely with Dr. Bromley and others within the Administration as
 well as my colleagues in Congress to secure the funding needed to
 implement this critically-important program.

        I look forward to hearing the testimony of Dr. Bromley and all of
 the distinguished witnesses who have made time in their very busy
 schedule to be here today.  And I look forward to working with my
 colleagues on the Commerce Committee towards passage of this bill.


 Statement of Mr. Tracey Gray
 Vice President of Marketing
 Government Systems Division
  US Sprint Communications Company Limited Partnership

 Before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space
 of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

 United States Senate



 Room 252, Russell Senate Office Building
 March 5, 1991         2:00 p.m.






                       Hearings before the Senate
            Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space
                                  of the
            Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
                                    on
            S.272, The High Performance Computing Act of 1991
                             Washington, D.C.
                              March 5, 1991

                          Prepared Statement of
                             Mr. Tracey Gray
     Vice President of Marketing for the Government Systems Division
           US Sprint Communications Company Limited Partnership


                               INTRODUCTION

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. I am
 Tracey Gray, Vice President of Marketing for the Government
 Systems Division at US Sprint. I appreciate this opportunity to speak
 with you on S.272, the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991.

 As you know, US Sprint is the third largest telecommunications
 carrier in the United States today - and the only all fiber, fully
 digital network. US Sprint serves 90% of the Fortune 500 U.S.
 companies with voice, data, and video services, and we offer
 telecommunications services to 153 countries around the world.

 My division, the Government Systems Division, is proud to serve over
 500,000 government employees at 35 agencies under the FTS 2000
 contract. In addition to FTS 2000, we are responsible for all business
 relations and opportunities with the federal government.  This
 includes evaluating and assessing the risks and opportunities with
 emerging technologies and applications in telecommunication
 network solutions.

                            NREN APPLICATIONS

 I would like to talk with you today about NREN, the National
 Research and Education Network -- one component of the High
 Performance Computing initiative.  Mr. Chairman, the operative word
 in that sentence is Network.  High performance networking should
 share equal billing with high performance computing.

 US Sprint does not build supercomputers; we do not maintain or
 operate an information infrastructure of databases; we do not
 develop computer software tools or train supercomputer hardware
 or software engineers. US Sprint does provide telecommunications
 services -- based on state-of-the-art, fiber technology and advanced
 network architectures. Fiber technology will be the network
 infrastructure that supports the computing hardware necessary to
 solve the Grand Challenges. This future network platform will allow
 researchers to establish National Collaboratories among our nation's
 laboratories and university research centers that will solve the Grand
 Challenge problems such as global warming, the identification of new
 superconduction materials, and the mysteries of cancer causing
 genes.

 While the Grand Challenge problems certainly require our attention,
 US Sprint appreciates the Committee's understanding that industry
 related problems exist that can benefit from the application of high
 performance computing.  This Committee's 1990 report on S.1067
 rightly noted that a supercomputer model helped Boeing design an
 737 airplane that was 30% more efficient.  The petroleum industry
 benefited when Arco used a Cray supercomputer to increase oil
 production at its Prudhoe Bay field, resulting in a two billion dollar
 profit for the company. An Alcoa supercomputer model reduced the
 amount of aluminum needed for its soda cans by 10%, resulting in
 transportation and production savings.  Mr. Gore, your January 24
 statement noted that Ford's engineers can simulate automobile crash
 tests using supercomputers for a fraction of the cost of conducting
 real life experiments. Each of these industry applications of
 supercomputing benefits the American consumer and the national
 interest through greater efficiencies, higher quality products,
 increased cost savings, and improved productivity.

 But let's not focus solely on supercomputers and connecting
 supercomputers. Other research and engineering applications require
 high speed networking, and by bringing other applications on to this
 network, we can increase scale economies that could justify
 investments in multi-gigabit networks.

 For example, medical doctors are confronting a problem where
 technology produces greater diagnostic capability, yet there are
 fewer experts to interpret the data.  The solution is teleradiology --
 the process of digitizing and transmitting medical images to distant
 locations - which allows the nation's top radiologists to access key
 medical imaging from virtually anywhere in the United States in
 seconds. Today, US Sprint's network can transmit diagnostic quality
 images in approximately 37 seconds using multiple 56 kilobit per
 second lines.  The same image would take up to an hour and a half to
 transmit over a traditional analog network using 9600 bits per
 second.

 Tomorrow's technology will allow real time full motion imaging and
 require bandwidths substantially greater than 45 megabits per
 second, the highest speeds available today. A radiologist at a distant
 location will be able to watch fetuses move and hearts beat, and
 provide immediate diagnostic feedback.  High speed networks are
 required for real-time image transfers because video compression
 greater than 2.5:1 is destructive to the image's clarity.

 Medical imaging is one of many high performance networking
 applications. Computer Aided Design/Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) is
 another. American industry will remain strong, if they have the best
 communication tool to complete their work.  Interactive CAD/CAM
 will allow industry to work more quickly and efficiently, allowing
 widely dispersed engineers to participate in the design process
 without exchanging roomfuls of paper.

                             NREN TECHNOLOGY

 The question posed by the legislation, however, is how
 supercomputers can be made accessible to more users. And the
 answer is the development of supernetworks with multi-gigabit
 capacity - or NREN.

 US Sprint is working with developments that would support the
 NREN objectives. We are developing plans for a broadband test bed
 akin to those established under the leadership of the National Science
 Foundation (NSF), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
 (DARPA), and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives
 (CNRl). US Sprint is a partner in a of a Midwest coalition that is
 working with DARPA to develop a network concept plan for a
 terrestrial, fly- over imaging application for the Department of the
 Army's Future Battle Lab. The terrestrial, fly-over project would take
 satellite pictures and convert them into computer-developed, "three
 dimensional" landscapes that would allow the user to "fly over" or
 "walk through" the terrain.  Generals could "see" a battlefield without
 sending out scouts!

 Additionally, US Sprint has recently become an international vendor
 for NSFNET providing links to research networks in France and
 Sweden, and we now serve on NSF's Federal Networking Advisory
 Committee to the Federal Networking Council.

 Although many advances are being made towards the development
 of the systems necessary for gigabit networks, many hurdles remain.
 The fundamental building block required for gigabit networks exists
 today. Fiber optic cables with ample bandwidth to support multi-
 gigabit and higher transmission speeds criss-cross our country.  US
 Sprint's all fiber optic network operates today with backbone speed
 of 1.7 Gbps. We are currently testing 2.4 Gbps optic equipment in our
 labs for installation on our high capacity routes next year.  Our
 transmission equipment vendors are developing the next generation
 of optic systems with transmission speeds of 9.6Gbps.

 Switching platforms also continue to advance with cell relay
 technology. Many believe that cell relay switching best supports the
 bandwidth-on-demand services essential to high speed networks.
 Small, non-standard cell relay switches capable of switching traffic at
 150 Mops are on the market today. International standards for cell
 relay are advancing rapidly, with many projected for completion by
 1992.  Nonetheless, difficult network design problems remain in cell
 relay technology such as traffic congestion and routing.  American
 researchers are working toward solutions to these problems.

 To achieve the NREN goals, compatible telecommunication and
 computer standards must be written for the signaling, operation,
 administration and management of high speed networks. These
 network support systems are as important to the implementation of
 the NREN as the transmission and switching systems. The
 development of standards for these support systems requires careful
 consideration and must parallel the evolution of gigabit technologies.

                             US SPRINT POSITION

 Mr. Chairman, US Sprint fully supports the intent of the High
 Performance Computing initiative.  We are convinced that without
 government seed money, supercomputer networking will be slow to
 mature.  Let me share two related thoughts with you, however, about
 the legislation and the implementation of the legislation pertaining to
 network applications and to the Committee's intent to phase the
 NREN into commercial operation.

 First, with respect to network applications, to speed the development
 of high speed networks, US Sprint recommends broadening the scope
 of the legislation to include a variety of high speed networking
 applications.  I have briefly described two applications, not requiring
 supercomputers, that would serve pressing, existing needs.
 Providing funds for applications research could stimulate many more
 ideas within the research community.  Each of these application ideas
 could support a new group of users, further extending the benefits of
 high speed networking to society.  With applications as the driver,
 high speed networks will grow in scale and ubiquity throughout the
 country.

 My second point, and one that I think is a concern to the Committee
 as well, pertains to the phase-in to commercial operation, one of the
 objectives to be realized by the network.  Although the bill includes
 language that the NREN be "phased into commercial operation as
 commercial networks can meet the networking needs of American
 researchers and educators," there is no path--given the current
 development of the NSFNET--that gets us from here to there.

 In fact, the government is creating a private--a dedicated--
 telecommunications infrastructure that parallels the commercial,
 public networks operating in the U.S. today.  Rather than duplicate
 commercial facilities with a government owned and operated
 telecommunications system, we suggest that the NREN be established
 through public network services--where the government's
 networking requirements are combined with the public's
 requirements in the development of commercial networks.
 Otherwise, it is not clear how we will ever "phase" from a dedicated
 U.S. government network to commercial networks.

 With a public network service, industry would develop, own, and
 operate the facilities to provide gigabit capability and offer that
 capability as a service to the Government and other industry users.
 In this environment, users are not obligated to full time, dedicated
 service, but are oriented to a preferred, bandwidth-on-demand
 scenario.  A public, high speed network service would be positioned
 much like today's public, long distance or virtual private networking
 services.  Users only pay when they use the service.

 By evolving NREN as a public network service, the government also
 takes advantage of existing network platforms.  US Sprint  for
 example, offers a fully deployed, ubiquitous, network service.  We
 fully integrate today's telecommunication requirements combining
 voice, data, and video services with a single network platform. . US
 Sprint integrates the management, operation, and administration of
 that network into a single organization.  NREN can only duplicate
 public network features like these at tremendous cost.  By leveraging
 the existing infrastructure of public networks, the government can
 realize the development of a more robust NREN, sooner, and at less
 cost.

                             RECOMMENDATIONS

 In short, Mr. Chairman, US Sprint recommends that the High
 Performance Computing Act of 1991 address two issues.

 First, the bill should authorize the funding of academic research for
 application s requiring high speed network capacity in addition to
 connecting supercomputers.  As noted above, sophisticated medical
 imaging requires higher speed networks.  Similar applications that
 require high speed networking should be funded under this
 initiative.  US Sprint believe that funding this type of research will
 stimulate additional high speed network applications further
 justifying the development of the network.

 Second, the Committee should ensure that the design of the NREN
 does not lead to a government owned and operated network.  NREN
 should be developed to share the gigabit capacity of existing public
 networks and enjoy the advantages that public network operators
 bring to their commercial customers.  NREN could well operate as a
 virtual private network on an existing public network, but it should
 not operate as a separate network.

 Mr. Chairman, US Sprint sees the NREN developing more fully, more
 economically, and more quickly if it were to be developed as a
 shared, or public, network.

 We appreciate the opportunity to address the Committee.  I will be
 happy to answer any questions that you may have.

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


 Summary Statement

 Tracey Gray, Vice President of Marketing

 Government Systems Division


 US Sprint fully supports the intent of the High Performance
 Computing initiative.  We are convinced that without government
 seed money, high performance computing and high performance
 networking will be slow to mature.

 US Sprint believes that the Committee should take two steps to help
 realize its goal of establishing a multi gigabit network by 1996.

 First, the Committee, in its bill, should authorize the funding of
 academic research that requires high performance networking
 without requiring, necessarily, high performance computing.  We
 advocate this position because we are convinced that unless
 additional applications for high speed networking are developed,
 industry will not be able to justify the costs of developing multi-
 gigabit networks devoted to linking supercomputers.

 Second, US Sprint believes that the Committee should ensure that the
 NREN, the National Research and Education Network, is not
 established as a government owned and operated, dedicated
 network.  Rather, we believe that the NREN should be developed as a
 public network service to take full advantage of the near and long
 term technical features and administrative support systems
 developed by public network providers.  In our mind, the
 industry/government partnership envisioned by the legislation will
 only come to fruition if we marry our financial and technical
 resources in the development of shared, public networks instead of
 pursuing the development of exclusive, private networks.  Moreover,
 unless NREN develops as a shared resource, we cannot envision how
 NREN will be phased into commercial operation as the legislation
 anticipates.

 US Sprint commends the Committee's foresight and initiatives with
 respect to high performance computing and high performance
 networking.  We look forward to lending our expertise and resources
 to help in meeting the Committee's legislative goals.



                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNEST P. HOLLINGS
      HEARING ON S. 272, THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ACT
                        TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1991

      I am a cosponsor of S. 272, the High-Performance Computing Act,
 because this is the kind of far-sighted legislation that should be a
 priority here in the Senate.  S. 272 addresses the long-term
 economic, educational, and national security needs of this country.
 We cannot just focus on the problems of today; we need to find
 solutions to the problems of tomorrow as well.

       The bill we are considering today will accelerate the
 development of new technology and, just as importantly, speed up
 the application of that new technology.  By creating a National
 Research and Education Network (NREN), this bill will link our
 university labs to labs and factories in the private sector so they can
 more effectively use the research done by university researchers.

       Today the flow of information is truly global; the results of
 research done at MIT now may be applied in a laboratory
 somewhere else tomorrow.  The NREN would help us take advantage
 of that research.  If our best research scientists are in constant,
 instantaneous communication, through high-speed computer
 networks, with the engineers and product designers in American
 industry, we have a huge competitive edge.

       The NREN and high-speed, commercial networks based on NREN
 technology will not develop spontaneously.  Federal leadership and
 Federal investment are needed to spur the private sector to develop
 these networks.  S. 272 provides for this spur.  It is an important
 step toward exploiting the full potential of fiber optics in our national
 telecommunications system.

       The NREN and high-speed fiber optic networks are particularly
 important to states like South Carolina.  In South Carolina, we have
 many colleges and universities which lack the resources available at
 other research universities. The NREN will provide them with access
 to facilities presently available only at places like Caltech and
 Harvard. With the NREN, a researcher at the University of South
 Carolina would have access to very fastest supercomputers available
 anywhere.  A researcher at Clemson would be able to connect to a
 radio telescope halfway across the country and collect data and
 compare his or her results with colleagues around the country.

       The applications of the NREN in education are even more exciting.
 With access to the NREN and the "Digital Libraries" of electronic
 information connected to it, at the smallest colleges in South Carolina,
 and many high schools, students would be able to access more
 information from their computer keyboard than they could find in
 their school libraries.  The NREN would broaden the horizons of
 students at small colleges, two-year technical colleges, historically
 black colleges -- at every college in South Carolina.

       This is important legislation, and I look forward to working with
 Senator Gore and others on the Commerce Committee on the bill.



                             TESTIMONY BY


                          DR. MALVIN H. KALOS
                    DIRECTOR, CORNELL THEORY CENTER


            TO THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,
                               AND SPACE


               HEARINGS ON S. 272, THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE
                         COMPUTING ACT OF 1991

                        TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1991

 Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege to be invited to comment on the "High
 Performance Computing Act of 1991" in the company of such a
 distinguished group of representatives of government, industry, and
 academia.

 I am Malvin H. Kalos, Director of the Cornell Theory Center, and a
 professor of physics at Cornell University.  The Theory Center is an
 interdisciplinary research unit of Cornell University, dedicated to the
 advancement and exploitation of high performance computing and
 networking for science, engineering, and industrial productivity. As
 you know, the Theory Center is one of the National Supercomputer
 Centers supported by the National Science Foundation. The Center
 also receives support from the State of New York, and from industry.

 My career spans 40 years of work with computers as a tool in
 physics and engineering. I have worked in universities, industry, and
 as a consultant to the Los Alamos, Livermore, and Oak Ridge national
 laboratories in research devoted to the application of high
 performance computing to further their missions.

 We are witnessing a profound transformation of our scientific and
 engineering cultures brought about by the advent and adoption of
 high-performance computing and communications as part of our
 technological society. The changes, some of which we see now, some
 of which we easily surmise, and some of which we can only guess at,
 have had and will continue to have wide-reaching benefits. Our
 economic well-being and the quality of our lives will be
 immeasurably improved. I salute the foresight and leadership of the
 authors and cosponsors of this Bill, and the Administration. Senator
 Gore, Congressmen Hollings and Brown, and the President all
 understand the deep and positive implications for our future. We are
 also grateful for the support of Congressmen Boehlert and McHugh
 whose backing of our efforts at Cornell and for the entire program
 has been very strong.

 The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr.
 Bromley, has done essential work in translating the ideas into
 effective policy.  The Federal Coordinating Council for Science,
 Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET) has, for the first time, brought
 unity into the Federal approach to high-performance computing. This
 is a well designed, well integrated program that shows good balance
 between the need to exploit advancing supercomputing technology,
 the need for very high performance networking, and the need to
 bring these new tools to the widest possible community through
 research and education.

 I will begin with some historical and philosophical remarks about
 science, using the history of physics, which I know best. Science is
 not a dry collection of disconnected facts, however interesting. The
 essence of science is the dynamic network of interconnections
 between facts. For a scientist, making a connection never perceived
 before can be the highlight of a career; the more distant the
 connection, the more it is valued. Our aim is to connect all we know
 in a seamless web of understanding. Historically, the greatest
 contribution of the greatest scientists have been such connections:
 Newton's between the fall of an apple and the motion of the Moon
 and planets; Maxwell's between the phenomena of electricity,
 magnetism, and the propagation of light; Einstein's leap of
 understanding connecting quanta of light and the photoelectric effect.
 These connections must be, to the greatest extent possible,
 mathematical and quantitative, not merely verbal or qualitative.
 Making these connections in a quantitative way remains at the heart
 of pure science today, but it has become harder as we try to probe
 into more and more complex phenomena, phenomena that cannot be
 analyzed by the mathematical tools at our disposal.  There are many
 important examples in science that shed light on this paradigm.

 Chemistry is one of our most important sciences, one that contributes
 enormously to our grasp of the physical world and one whose
 applications lie at the core of our understanding of materials we use,
 wear, and eat, and of our health. The fundamental understanding of
 chemistry lies in quantum mechanics and electricity, well understood
 since the 1930s. Yet the translation of that scientific understanding
 into quantitative knowledge about chemical materials and processes-
 - polymers, chemical catalysis, drugs both harmful and healing, is
 very far from complete. Quite properly, chemistry is still largely an
 experimental science. But the power of modern supercomputers is
 transforming the face of chemistry at every level.  We are coming to
 understand how electrons cooperate to bind atoms into molecules,
 molecules into larger structures, and to elucidate their structural,
 dynamic, and biological effects.  However, extraordinary numerical
 precision, which can only be attained by very powerful
 supercomputers, is required for this vital work.

 Many other areas of science involve this kind of systematic
 connection among different phenomena at different scales of length
 or energy, including biology and medicine, the physics of materials,
 and astrophysics.

 The role of computation in linking disparate scientific fields is not a
 contemporary development. The early evolution of modem
 computers was dominated in the 1940s and 1950s by John von
 Neumann, who was also a great mathematician. He designed
 computers so that the very difficult questions that underlie such
 scientific and engineering problems as fluid flow could be explored
 and understood. Only later was it recognized that computers were
 also important business tools. The essential role of computers in
 science and engineering were well appreciated by many groups in
 the United States, including the national laboratories, and their use
 contributed very much to the development of nuclear weapons,
 fusion technology, and the design of aircraft.

 The use of computers in academic science and engineering evolved
 more slowly, partly because of the failure of many to see the
 possibilities, partly because the policies of the Federal government at
 the time discouraged scientists from participating fully. My own
 career was impacted negatively by these policies. It was the
 leadership of a few scientists, notably Dr. Kenneth Wilson, who
 created the modern climate of respect for the accomplishments and
 possibilities of computational science in the future of our country.
 The constructive contributions of the Congress and the National
 Science Foundation in creating the National Supercomputer Centers
 are noteworthy. That creation was, in a profound sense, the mark of
 the entry by the mainstream of American research into the era of
 computational science at the heart of science
 and engineering.

 It is also important to note that computational science is now an
 essential tool in experimental science as it is currently practised. The
 most advanced scientific instruments, optical and radio telescopes,
 particle accelerators, and computers themselves are studied,
 designed, optimized, and verified with computer simulation. Data
 collection is usually automated with the help of computers, and the
 reduction to comprehensible data sets and pictures may involve
 enormous computations. Exchange of large data sets and the
 cooperative work in understanding them will require very large
 computations and very heavy use of future high capacity data
 networks. Finally, in many cases, even reduced data are
 incomprehensible except when studied in the light of complex
 theories that can be understood only by simulation.

 Now the entire scientific and engineering community of the country
 has the opportunity to exploit these new tools. Many researchers are.
 Important new scientific discoveries are being made. New ideas and
 connections are seen everywhere. More important, students and
 young scientists, who are always the very heart of any important
 scientific change, are involved. They are coming to understand the
 techniques, the promise, and the limitations of computational science.
 Their knowledge and its applications are the most important
 products of our efforts, and they will carry the message to the rest of
 our society and to the future. It is they who will have the most direct
 impact upon industry in the United States.

 The science made possible throughout the nation by the resources of
 the Theory Center spans all scales of length and energy from the
 galactic through the planetary through the earth's crust, the behavior
 of man-made structures, of materials at the microscopic level, to the
 physics of elementary particles.  From another perspective, it spans
 the traditional disciplines of physics, chemistry, mathematics,
 biology, medicine, all fields of engineering, and agriculture and
 veterinary medicine.

 Although I describe research at or made possible by the Theory
 Center, the other National Centers, at San Diego, Champaign-Urbana,
 and at Pittsburgh, can easily list an equally impressive set of
 accomplishments in pure and multidisciplinary science.

 It is perhaps unfair to cite a few at the expense of so many others,
 but the work of Stuart Shapiro and Saul Teukolsky on fluids and
 fields in general relativity is outstanding and has been recognized by
 a significant prize, the Forefronts of Large-Scale Computation Award.
 Their research comprises both the development of mathematical and
 numerical methods for the exploration of astrophysical and
 cosmological phenomena and the use of these methods to develop
 quantitative understanding of the formation of black holes and the
 characteristics of gravitational radiation.

 John Dawson of UCLA uses the Theory Center resources to study the
 unexpected results of the Active Magnetic Particle Tracer Explorer
 experiments.  In these, barium and lithium were injected into the
 earth's magnetosphere, creating, in effect, an artificial comet.  The
 observations contradicted existing theories and simulations.  Dawson
 and Ross Bollens constructed a hybrid theory and simulation that
 models the observed effect.

 Henry Krakauer of the College of William and Mary uses a modern
 "density functional" theory of electronic structure to examine the
 nature of the electron-phonon interaction, known to be responsible
 for low-temperature superconductivity. The aim is to determine its
 role in high- temperature superconductivity. Work like this is being
 carried out throughout the world and will require the fastest parallel
 supercomputers of the future.  Having them available to American
 researchers, including those who are not at major research
 universities, gives them and American industry a competitive edge.

 The research of Harold Scheraga and his group at Cornell into the
 three-dimensional structure of proteins shows an equally broad
 range of activity: the investigation of the fundamental interactions of
 the amino acid units with each other and with solvent atoms, the
 basic computational techniques needed to find the optimal structure,
 and the biochemistry of proteins. This is research that is particularly
 well suited to highly parallel computing, and will require, in the long
 run, the full use of future teraflops machines.

 Understanding the properties of the earth's crust is the subject of the
 research of Larry Brown and the Consortium for Continental
 Reflection Profiling (COCORP). This national group uses the
 supercomputers to reduce, display, and interpret the huge data set
 that is gathered by seismic probing (to 30krn or more) of the
 continental crust.

 I cited earlier the fundamental importance of scientific computing in
 enabling the connections among different phenomena within
 scientific disciplines. Even more important is its role in permitting
 quantitative connections among different disciplines, that is, in
 supporting multidisciplinary research. Every one of the large
 problems that confront our society, and to whose solutions we expect
 science to contribute, is in some sense a multidisciplinary problem.
 For example, issues of the environment involve many sciences --
 chemistry, physics, engineering, fluid flow, biology, and materials.

 Medicine is equally demanding in its call upon diverse science.  As
 we have indicated, biochemistry and its relations to chemistry and
 physics plays a central role in medicine. But other areas are
 important as well. As part of my oral presentation, I will show a
 video of a supercomputing study of the uses of ultrasound in the
 treatment of eye tumors. The building of modem prosthetic devices
 uses many resources of computation, from the reduction of CAT scans
 to the computational optimization of the mechanical properties of the
 devices. Understanding blood flow in the heart requires a mastery of
 fluid dynamics of viscous media plus the knowledge of the elastic
 properties of the heart and its valves.

 Bringing the knowledge from these fields together to make
 quantitative predictions about the effects of some technological or
 regulatory proposal is a difficult undertaking, one that is utterly
 impossible without the use of computational modeling on high-
 performance computers. Computational modeling is the indispensable
 natural language of quantitative multidisciplinary research.

 An outstanding example of such work is that by Greg McRae of
 Carnegie Mellon University. He uses supercomputers and
 supercomputer-based visualization to explain from basic chemistry,
 fluid mechanics, meteorology, and engineering the scientific effect
 that underlie the development of air pollution in the Los Angeles
 Basin, and the probable effects of fuel changes and regulatory
 procedures.  His results have been used to influence regulatory
 policy constructively.

 The Global Basins Research Network (GBRN), a consortium directed
 by Larry Cathles of the Geology Department of Cornell University and
 by Roger Anderson of Columbia University's Lamont-Dougherty
 Laboratory and which includes eight academic and 11 industrial
 partners, has as its goal the multidisciplinary understanding of the
 chemical, physical, and mechanical processes that occur in a
 sedimentary basin such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico below
 Louisiana. They have assembled a composite database of the
 observations of the basin and are using computational modeling to
 explain the data. But simply the collection and display in a coherent
 visual way has led to new and deeper understanding of the geology.
 The outcome of this understanding is very likely to improve oil
 recovery world-wide. I will also show a video clip of a visualization
 of the data set that was prepared jointly by the Theory Center and
 the GBRN.

 It is important to note that this research covers a wide range of
 partners, geographically dispersed, and the that the medium of
 information exchange is usually visual.  High- performance
 networking is essential to the GBRN and to similar scientific
 enterprises.

 Another important development is the establishment at Cornell of
 the Xerox Design Research Institute, with the participation of the
 Theory Center, the Computer Science Department, and the School of
 Engineering. Directed by Gregory Zack of Xerox, and involving
 researchers from Xerox centers nationwide, the aim of the Institute,
 quite simply, is to improve Xerox's ability to bring better products
 more quickly to market. The techniques are those of computational
 and computer science. A vital aspect of the research is the
 development of methods whereby the geographically separate
 centers can effectively collaborate.  Again, high-performance
 networking is key.

 As our reach extends, the necessary partners required to carry out
 important collaborative research will rarely be found at one
 institution or even in one part of the country. Essential experimental
 devices or data bases may exist anywhere. Rapid, concurrent access
 is essential, and at higher demands in bandwidth.  The NREN is
 necessary for the full growth and exploitation of the scientific,
 technological, and educational implications of computational science.
 The GBRN and Xerox examples indicate how the greatest potential is
 for industrial use.

 The supercomputing community will soon find itself at a major
 crossroads -- where the increases in performance needed for the
 fulfillment of our scientific mandate will demand parallel
 architectures. To exploit these new machines, a major retooling of
 software and algorithms will have to take place. This is not a trivial
 undertaking, yet it must be started very soon if we are to make
 progress on the Grand Challenge problems in the mid-1990s.

 The High-Performance Computing and Communications program will
 offer us an essential opportunity to bridge the gap between today's
 high performance vector machines and tomorrow's highly parallel
 systems.

 I have emphasized how science and its application to societal
 problems are communal activities, activities that involve, more or
 less directly, the entire scientific community. Bringing to bear the
 transformation made possible by computational science in the most
 complete and positive way requires that its techniques and strategies
 be learned, used, and shared by the widest possible group of
 researchers and educators. That means advancing the art, acquiring
 the best and most powerful tools of hardware, software, and
 algorithms, and coupling the community in the tightest possible
 ways.

 The "High-Performance Computing Act of 1991" is a vital step in that
 direction.



 Statement by DONALD N. LANGENBERG

 Chancellor, The University of Maryland System

  Before the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space
  Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation


 United States Senate

  March 5, 1991


 Donald N. Langenberg is Chancellor of the University of Maryland
 System. With a doctorate in physics, Dr. Langenberg has held faculty
 and administrative positions at the University of Pennsylvania and
 the University of Illinois at Chicago. He served as Acting and Deputy
 Director of the National Science Foundation. He is currently Chairman
 of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of
 Science and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National
 Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. He chaired
 the panel of the NAS/NAE/IOM Committee on Science, Engineering,
 and Public Policy that authored the 1989 report, Information
 Technology and the Conduct of Research: The User's View.



 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

       Thank you for your invitation to testify on S. 272, the High-
 Performance Computing Act of 1991.


       I am Donald Langenberg, Chancellor of the University of
 Maryland System. My view of the issues addressed by this bill has
 naturally been shaped by my own experience. I am, or was, an
 experimental solid state physicisL I have served as Deputy Director
 and as Acting Director of the National Science Foundation. I am
 currently CEO of an eleven-campus state university system,
 Chairman of the Board of the American Association for the
 Advancement of Science, and Chairman of the National Association of
 State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. These affiliations account
 for some of my biases, but most are a result of my service as chair of
 a National Research Council panel that wrote a 1989 report entitled
 Information Technology and the Conduct of Research: The User's
 View.

       My service on the panel convinced me that the current
 breathtaking rate of change in information technology will inevitably
 force historic changes in our institutions for managing information.
 Nowhere is this more evident than in the research and education
 communities that both create important new developments in
 information technology, and are often bellwethers in its use. It is the
 viewpoint of these communities that I will try to represent this
 afternoon.

       Information is the fundamental stuff of both research and
 education. Research and education are about the creation of
 information and its transformation into knowledge and
 understanding, for our individual and collective benefit.

       Modern information technology has presented us with a
 challenge of unprecedented scale. The Library of Congress contains
 about 10 terabytes of information. It took us over two centuries to
 collect ii It's stored nearby in an impressive collection of expensive
 real estate. Medical imaging machines nowadays produce that much
 information every week or so. The particle detectors of the
 Superconducting Super Collider will one day engulf their designers
 with that much information every few seconds. NASA already has
 1.2 million magnetic tapes containing data from past missions, and its
 archives are growing by about one Library of Congress every year.
 In ten years, if all goes according to plan, NASA will be piling up
 about fifty Libraries of Congress each year. Everywhere one looks,
 similar gushers of information exist or are in prospect.

       Fortunately, modern information technology also promises to
 give us the means to meet this challenge. Transforming promise into
 reality, however, will take time, skill, resources, and, above all,
 wisdom. In my opinion, S. 272 represents a major contribution to
 that transformation. I strongly support its passage into law.

       Let me make a few points related to the work of our NRC panel.

       1.   The Panel found that there exist significant technical,
 financial, behavioral, and infrastructural impediments to the
 widespread use of information technology in research. Though the
 Panel's charge was confined to research, I believe the same
 impediments exist with respect to education. The Panel made three
 main recommendations and a host of subrecommendations for
 dealing with these impediments.  S. 272 responds to most of them.

 2.    One of the Panel's three principal recommendations was that,
 "the institutions supporting the nation's researchers, led by the
 federal government, should develop an interconnected national
 information technology network for use by all qualified researchers."
 S. 272's National Research and Education Network (NREN) responds
 directly to the need reflected in this recommendation, and also to the
 very important collateral need of the educational sector. In my
 judgment, NREN will revolutionize both research and education (in an
 evolutionary way, of course).

 3.    When one thinks of what NREN might do for education, one
 thinks first of the education of scientists and engineers, then perhaps
 of the incredible potential inherent in linking NREN to every
 elementary school, secondary school, public library, and museum in
 the country. There is another educational need of utmost importance.
 I believe that part of the challenge we face is the creation of an
 entirely new kind of institutional infrastructure for managing the
 new information technology, led and supported by a new breed of
 information professionals. The latter may bear some resemblance to
 librarians, or to computer scientists, or to publishers. Whatever they
 might be, we need to create schools for training them and institutions
 within which they can function. That means educational and
 institutional innovation of a kind S. 272 appears well designed to
 foster.

 4.    The most important words in the title of our panel report reflect
 our most important observation. They are "the user's view." In
 simple terms, the Panel concluded that the development of
 information technology and its applications in the conduct of
 research (and, I would add here, education) are far too important to
 be left to the experts. The Panel cautioned that planning and
 development should be guided by users of information technology,
 both current and prospective, Dot by information specialists,
 information scientists, information technologists, or local, national,
 and international policymakers. It may not invariably be true that
 "the customer is always right," but institutions that create technology
 or make policy without a clear understanding and appreciation of the
 real needs of their clients and constituents risk making serious and
 expensive blunders. S. 272 calls for the advice of users in the
 development of the National Research and Education Network I
 especially applaud this provision.

 5.  In my preface to our panel's report, I wrote:

 "I share with many researchers a strong belief that much of the
 power of science (whether practiced by scientists, engineers, or
 clinical researchers) derives from the steadfast commitment to free
 and unfettered communication of information and knowledge. This
 principle has been part of the ethos of the global research
 community for centuries, and has served it and the rest of humanity
 well. If asked to distill one key insight from my service on this panel,
 I would respond with the assertion that information technology is of
 truly enormous importance to the research community, and hence to
 all humanity, precisely because it has the potential to enhance
 communication of information and knowledge within that community
 by orders of magnitude. We can now only dimly perceive what the
 consequences of that fact may be. That there is a revolution
 occurring in the creation and dissemination of information,
 knowledge, and ultimately, understanding is clear to me. It is also
 clear to me that it is critically important to maintain our commitment
 to free and unfettered communication as we explore the uses of
 information technology in the conduct of research."

 What I asserted there about research, I would assert now about
 education. If I am right, then by far the most profoundly important
 consequence of the creation of NREN will not be the expedition of
 research or the improvement of next year's balance of trade. It will
 be the fundamental democratization of all the world's knowledge.
 That means placing the accumulated intellectual wealth of centuries
 at the beck and call of every man, woman, and child. What that
 might mean can only be guessed, but let me reminisce for a moment.

 I grew up in a small town on the Great Plains. In that town was a
 Carnegie Library, one of hundreds Andrew Carnegie endowed across
 the nation. That modest building and the equally modest collection it
 housed opened the world to me. I have been grateful to the
 Pittsburgh steelmaker ever since. What if I had had direct personal
 access to the Library of Congress, the British Museum, the Louvre,
 and the Deutsches Museum, all in the course of a summer afternoon
 in North Dakota? Imagine!

 My point here is that there is an overriding public interest in NREN
 and in the rest of the provisions of S. 272, an interest that transcends
 research and its industrial applications, or issues of governance and
 the timetable for commercialization. We have an opportunity here
 for an American achievement of truly Jeffersonian proportions.  Let's
 not blow it!

 6.  Finally, I note with approval that S. 272 identifies the National
 Science Foundation as the lead agency for the development of NREN.
 The choice is wise, I think NSF has a demonstrated capacity to
 manage large complex technical operations. Unlike other S&T
 agencies, NSF's focus is not on some "mission," but on its "users," i.e.,
 its client science and engineering communities. And, perhaps most
 important, alone among federal agencies NSF bears responsibility for
 the support of research across the full spectrum of scientific and
 engineering disciplines, and for the training of those who perform
 the research, and for the general education in science and technology
 of everybody else.

 You will have gathered that I have considerable enthusiasm for S.
 272. I do!  I urge you and your colleagues to enact it into law.


 Testimony of
 David C. Nagel, Ph.D.
 Vice President, Advanced Technology
 Apple Computer, Inc
 Government Affairs Office
 1550 M Street, N.W., Suite 1000
 Washington, D.C. 20005
 [phone]

 On Behalf of the Computer Systems Policy Project
 (CSPP)

 Before the Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee
 of the
 Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee

 S.272
 THE HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ACT OF 1991
 March 5, 1991


 Introduction

      Apple Computer, Inc. and the other members of the Computer
 Systems Policy Project (CSPP) are very appreciative for the
 opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee on the issue of high
 performance computing. As several of us have said in previous
 appearances before this subcommittee, the health of the U.S.
 computer industry is inextricably tied to the future health of the
 nation as a global economic power. Although the U.S. has been for
 decades preeminent in both the development of the most advanced
 computer technology in the world and in the capture of the largest
 share of the global computing systems market, that leadership is
 being steadily eroded by our global competitors.

      In purely economic terms, the U.S. computer systems industry
 plays a vital role in the U.S. economy. In 1989, for example, our
 industry exported more than $22B in computer equipment alone, or
 more than 6% of total U.S. exports that year. Our industry employs
 almost 600,000 workers in the U.S. When we look beyond the
 immediate economic picture and into the future, few would argue
 with the belief that the health of the computer systems industry will
 serve as a bellwether to the overall health and leadership of the U.S.
 as a global economic and industrial power. It is difficult to think of
 significant technical advances over the past two decades in any
 segment of the economy that have not relied on computer systems.
 The computer systems industry is clearly a building block for other
 industries. Computer systems products are necessary and critical
 components of virtually all modem manufacturing and service
 industries and development and operation of most of the
 sophisticated weapons systems in the U.S. arsenal would be
 impossible without computer systems and electronic components.

      In the fall of 1989, the eleven largest computer systems
 companies in the U.S. formed the Computer Systems Policy Project to
 address technology and trade policy from the computer systems
 industry perspective. As a reflection of the seriousness with which
 the industry views the future of computer technology in the U.S., the
 CSPP is an association of the Chief Executives of Apple, Hewlett-
 Packard, Compaq, Cray, IBM, Control Data, Digital Equipment, NCR,
 Sun Microsystems, Tandem and Unisys. One of the major goals in
 forming the CSPP was to provide the industry and policy makers in
 Washington, D.C. the data and perspective necessary to the
 development of effective, long-range policies both in the
 development of technology and in the improvement of our trade
 position globally. Each of the member companies - including the
 CEO's, Chief Technologists, and supporting staff - has made a
 significant commitment to this project over the past year and a half.

      CSPP began its study more than a year ago with an internal look
 at the health of our industry including: an assessment of the
 technologies that are critical to computer systems; an assessment of
 how the United States is doing with these technologies compared to
 our foreign competitors; and a prognosis for U.S. industry
 performance into the future. In summary, the results of this initial
 analysis were mixed. While the U.S. computer systems industry still
 today is the strongest in the world (both in terms of technology
 leadership and overall market share), our lead is diminishing rapidly
 by almost all the measures we examined. In addition, leading
 indicators of future health provide little cause for optimism.

      In 1983, U.S. companies held a 83% share of the world market of
 computer systems (including software). Between 1983 and 1989, our
 share of the worldwide market declined from 83% to 61%. During this
 same period, Japan's share rose from 8% to 22% and Europe's share
 grew from 10% to 15%. Figure 1 shows a similar decline in our share
 of the world market for computer hardware. Here the U.S. went from
 supplying well more than half of the world's supply of computer
 equipment to supplying less than our primary competitors, the
 Europeans and Japanese. More troubling, the computer systems
 industry went from a significantly positive contribution to the U.S.
 trade balance all throughout the 1980's to a position in 1990 where
 our imports almost exactly balance our exports (Figure 2). We note
 that while the U.S.ratio of exports to imports moved steadily
 downward over the past decade, Japan even more dramatically has
 increased its export/import ratio from around 2 in 1980 to more
 than 6 at the end of the 1980's. Finally, in the category of leading
 indicators, the U.S. is failing significantly in the competition for
 computer systems patents. Whereas in 1978, the U.S. received over
 60% of all computer systems patents, by 1988 we were being
 granted new U.S. patents only at the rate of 40% of the total. In the
 aggregate, Japanese industry was awarded nearly as many patents in
 the U.S. as were domestic manufacturers. Figure 3 illustrates these
 trends.

      While these findings are clearly troubling, the members of CSPP
 recognize that the primary  burden for staying competitive in the
 global marketplace rests squarely with U.S. industry. Thus, to begin
 our internal assessment, we examined our own investment levels
 and competitive positions in the key technologies critical to success
 in our highly competitive and highly technical business. We
 identified, for example, 16 critical pre-competitive generic
 technologies, and after significant analysis by the chief technologists
 of the CSPP, concluded that the U.S. still leads the world in half of
 these (data-base systems; processor architecture; human interface;
 visualization; operating systems; software engineering; application
 technology). Seven of the eight technologies for which the U.S. has a
 lead worldwide are software intensive. We concluded also that the
 U.S. lags the world in several critical technologies (displays; hard
 copy technology; manufacturing technology; semiconductor
 fabrication; electronic packaging). For the remainder (networks and
 communication; storage, microelectronics; fiberoptics) a once solid
 lead is diminishing. In contrast to the technologies for which the U.S.
 holds a lead, the lagging technologies are mostly capital-intensive.

      The chief technologists of the CSPP also concluded that the
 prognosis for leadership in these technologies over the next five
 years is that, without positive action, the U.S. position will erode
 further in all 16 technology areas. It is with this perspective that the
 CSPP began taking a closer look at what might be done to mitigate
 these negative trends.

      The CSPP supplemented its technology assessment with a review
 of the role of government investment in R&D in the U.S. and other
 countries (Figures 4 through 9) We came to some fundamental
 conclusions. First, the overall level of R&D spending in the U.S. at
 $135B in 1989 is substantial by any measure, greater than Japan and
 the European Community by significant margins (Fig. 5). The overall
 investment is split almost evenly between industry ($70B) and
 government ($65.8B). The computer systems industry spends 21% of
 private sector R&D, or about 10% of the total national investment in
 R&D (Fig. 6a). The investment of the computer industry in 1989 -
 more than $18B - is more than that of any other industrial sector and
 represents a 26% increase over the amount we spent in 1988, during
 a period when other industrial sectors were reducing their R&D
 spending. In contrast to the level of investment of private industry,
 the U.S. government only invested about 2% of its R&D portfolio in
 generic technologies related directly to the computer industry (Fig.
 6b). If we look at the electronics industry as a whole, about 30% of
 private R&D was spent by the electronics industry while the
 government invested only 6% of its R&D budget in electronics
 research. In general, the ratio of private to government R&D
 spending seems out of proportion relative to other industrial sectors
 (e.g. aerospace, health care, etc.).

      While we found that government spending on R&D has increased
 significantly in absolute levels over the past 25 years, defense-
 related spending has consumed a greater and greater share,
 increasing from a historical share of 50% to a high of 70% in 1987. It
 has remained at about the level of two-thirds of all government R&D
 spending since that time (Fig. 7). By contrast, the Japanese
 government allocates only 4% of its R&D budget to defense research
 (Fig. 8). Selected European countries spend an average of 30% of their
 government research budgets on defense. Among our principal
 competitors, only the government of France spends a greater
 percentage of its GNP on total R&D than does the U.S. government
 (Fig. 9).

       In our initial "Critical Technologies Report", the CSPP identified
 R&D as one of the most significant factors in determining the success
 of the industry's performance in 15 of 16 critical technologies. It is
 therefore not surprising that the computer systems industry
 performs 21% of private sector R&D and 10% of the total national
 R&D effort. We recognize that this investment is our lifeblood.
 Computer industry spending on R&D has increased at a much faster
 rate than government spending over the last two decades, a practice
 that has been required to keep pace with rapidly changing
 commercial demands and increasing levels of international
 competition.

      How should the government and industry R&D investments be
 split to maximize the benefits to U.S. industry and the U.S. economy?
 First, investment in generic, pre-competitive technologies such as
 electronics, materials and information technologies is important
 because these are the building blocks for advancements in the
 computer industry. Our assessment of the existing Federal research
 effort reveals that the federal R&D investment is contributing
 disproportionately little to these generic, pre-competitive technology
 developments. The federal R&D budget is not focused in ways needed
 to enhance and preserve our economic competitiveness given the
 rapid pace of innovation and the R&D practices by other countries.

      We acknowledge that the degrees of success of the various
 European (ESPRIT, BRITE, EURAM) and Japanese (5th Generation
 Computer Project, Super-Sigma Project, an advanced
 telecommunications research institute, etc.) research projects are not
 necessarily directly related to the absolute amount of government
 spending. Rather, we believe that the relative success of the Japanese
 projects (as reflected in the competitive position of Japanese
 industry) illustrates the benefits of close cooperation between the
 private and public sectors and of well-managed, focused efforts for
 advanced technology projects. Moreover, while in the past, defense
 R&D was a major source of technological advancement in the U.S. and
 the computer industry in particular benefited from defense research
 dollars, we believe that today, because of heightened demand for
 improved commercial products and the accelerating pace of global
 competition, the private sector is now the primary catalyst for
 innovation.

      We have concluded from these analyses that while the total
 amount of federal R&D spending is probably adequate, it needs to be
 managed more effectively if the U.S. computer industry is to be made
 able to compete in the technology areas essential to our future
 economic health. In short, we believe that federal R&D is not as
 helpful to the computer industry as it might be.

      Based on the data and on the strength of our analyses, CSPP has
 outlined an initial set of technology policy recommendations. We
 believe that these recommendations provide a strategy for better
 focusing the federal R&D investment in pre-competitive, generic
 technologies and that will help the U.S. meet international
 competitive challenges by increasing industry involvement in federal
 R&D priority setting. We believe that by working together, industry
 and government can improve the nation's return on the total R&D
 investment and can help to meet the international challenges to this
 country's technological strength.

                      Recommendations for Improvement

      We believe that the return on public and private investments in
 R&D can be improved by coordinating research priority setting and
 by allocating federal research dollars to more closely reflect the
 private sector's role in developing the general technologies that are
 key to the nation's economic growth. Increased investment in
 microelectronics, information technologies, and materials will provide
 a solid foundation for advancements not only in computer systems
 but also in aerospace, medical, energy, environmental and virtually
 every other area of research important to the future of our society.

      The CSPP believes that government and industry jointly must
 take the following first steps to improve the effectiveness of R&D
 spending in the U.S.:

 -    Improve the mechanisms within OMB for reviewing federal
 R&D spending;

 -    Increase industry input in setting federal R&D priorities to
 better manage the federal R&D budget;

 -    Work with industry to set federal laboratory priorities to
 improve the return on the national R&D investment; and

 -    Implement the High Performance Computing Initiative,
 including a national network capable of bringing the benefits of
 computing to every institution, household, and school in the nation.

      CSPP has established three CEO-level working groups to develop
 specific plans that will improve the economic return on the national
 R&D investment by:

 -    Improving the industry participation in the federal R&D
 priority setting and the federal R&D budget review process;

 -    Increasing the degree and effectiveness of interaction between
 industry and the federal laboratories; and

 -    By implement the High Performance Computing and
 Communications Initiative.

      CSPP CEO's, chief technologists, and staff are actively working on
 development of plans that address these three issues. Once
 completed, we intend to make the results of these investigations
 available to policy makers, including members of this Subcommittee.

 Improving the R&D Budget Review Process

      CSPP believes that the Administration and Congress must develop
 a better sense of how its $76B investment is R&D is being spent. To
 make the distribution of funds more understandable, we urge the
 Congress and the Administration to develop a comprehensive
 summary of the federal R&D budget - budget crosscuts - including
 summaries of agency initiatives related to development of generic
 technologies. We are pleased that OMB is providing budget
 summaries in several key areas, including high performance
 computing, the subject of this bill, and is considering the
 development of similar information for other important research
 areas such as materials.

      We believe that by providing industry perspectives, the
 effectiveness and usefulness of these budget summaries can be
 improved. Once such summaries are available, strategies can be more
 easily developed with industry participation to bolster investments
 in needed areas or to shift priorities where necessary. This should be
 done on an ongoing basis. We understand that industry participation
 in such activities may be problematic because of ethical, regulatory,
 and legal impediments and have established a CEO-level working
 group to identify these impediments and to develop
 recommendations for advisory mechanisms that are consistent with
 legal and other requirements and that provide the greatest
 opportunity for industry participation.

 Increasing Interactions Between Industry and the National Labs

      The Federal government spends billions each year on R&D in
 federal labs, three-fifths of which goes to defense programs. CSPP
 believes that much of that R&D, properly focused, could be
 substantially more useful to the computer industry than it is today.
 We believe that the nation's return on the federal lab investment can
 be enhanced by increasing private sector input into lab activities and
 by shifting some labs' research priorities to include generic
 technologies that have commercial potential. CSPP has established a
 CEO-level working group to recommend ways to improve the federal
 laboratories' contributions to the national R&D effort, including
 developing funding mechanisms for joint industry-lab projects of
 interest to the private sector; by identifying potential and current
 laboratory research projects and areas that could benefit the
 computer industry; and by identifying research areas that lend
 themselves to budget crosscut analysis. The results of this analysis
 and recommendations will be issued later this year.

 Implement the High Performance Computing and Communications
 Initiative

      Finally, CSPP fully supports and recommends fully funding a
 national high performance computing and communication R&D
 program, including implementing, in conjunction with academia and
 the private sector, a national research and education network. Thus
 the CSPP strongly supports the goals of S. 272 as well as the
 Administration's High Performance Computing and Communications
 (HPCC) Initiative. We believe that these efforts are critical to provide
 the research infrastructure required to maintain our nation's
 leadership in basic research and to expand our capability to perform
 the applied research which leads to commercialization of technology.
 The CSPP believes that the IIPCC will be instrumental in achievement
 of national education and work force training goals, an achievement
 that will be important increasingly to the economic and social health
 of our nation.

      CSPP will support this effort through a long-term project to
 identify possible future applications of a network that will enhance
 the quality of life and economic competitiveness of the nation. We
 believe that computer and networking technology can help to solve
 problems and to realize opportunities in U.S. homes, factories,
 universities, workplaces, and classrooms. We have established a CEO
 working group to identify innovative network applications, the
 technological advances needed to accomplish them, and the best
 ways to describe the applications benefits to the public.

      We are working, as well, to acquaint ourselves with the HPCC
 budget crosscut and with specific agency plans for research and
 development. Once we complete this survey, we will examine the
 relevance to the computer industry of the research being conducted
 as part of the initiative. Later this year, CSPP will provide
 recommendations to improve federal spending under the initiative.

      Although we have not yet completed our analyses, CSPP believes
 that creation of the NREN is an important first step toward realization
 of what some have termed a national information infrastructure. This
 national infrastructure would in effect constitute a very high
 performance electronic highway that will address the needs of
 business, schools, and individual citizens as well as institutions of
 research and higher education. With 80 percent of the U.S. economy
 classified broadly as services-related, the potential user base of such
 a national infrastructure is immense. We believe that the existence of
 such an infrastructure would allow the U.S. service economy,
 including the education component, to operate significantly more
 efficiently than today. We imagine that users of the national
 information network will have access to immense digital libraries
 and databases and that this access will transform both education and
 commerce. We believe too that health care will be transformed by
 the existence of a national digital information network. Vast
 databases encompassing the basic biological sciences (molecular
 biology, biochemistry, genetics) and applied medical applications
 such as diagnostic and treatment data will be needed eventually to
 improve both the quality and efficiency of the U.S. health care
 delivery system.

      We recognize and applaud the pioneering role that this
 subcommittee and its Chairman, Senator Gore, have played in long
 recognizing the importance of the development of a national
 information infrastructure, a research and education network, and an
 effective high performance computing program. The achievement of
 a true national information infrastructure is an undertaking of very
 significant complexity. The interim achievement of development of
 an NREN will allow solutions to be developed to important technical,
 policy, economic, regulatory, and social problems, solutions that will
 point the way toward a true national information infrastructure for
 the nation.

 Specific Comments About S. 272

      In Section 5 of the bill, we especially applaud the provision for a
 National High Performance Computing Plan and the establishment of
 a High-Performance Computing Advisory Panel consisting of
 prominent representatives from industry and academia. These
 provisions are in keeping with both the spirit and substance of CSPP
 findings to date and the CSPP stands ready to participate in such an
 Advisory Panel as needed. We applaud as well the Section 5
 provision requiring the Panel to provide the FCCSET with an
 independent assessment of whether the research and development
 funded under the High Performance Computing Plan is helping to
 Maintain United States leadership in computing technology.

      In Section 6 of the bill, FCCSET is charged with development of the
 "goals, strategy, and priorities" for an NREN. While we support this
 provision as an important first step, we believe that some attention
 should be given as the program progresses to issues which surround
 development of a true national information infrastructure. For
 example, agencies could be directed to perform analyses that would
 identify impediments, regulatory or otherwise, toward achievement
 of a true national information infrastructure and conduct other
 studies or research that will lead to solutions to these impediments
 as experience is gained in the development and operation of NREN.
 Again, CSPP would welcome the opportunity to contribute to such
 analyses and otherwise support the achievement of the goals of the
 High Performance Computing Act of 1991.

 Conclusions

      CSPP recognizes that improving U.S. technology policy is a long-
 term process that cannot be addressed by any one organization, any
 single set of recommendations, or any given piece of legislation.
 Improvement of U.S. technology is, nonetheless, an essential process
 that will require cooperative R&D investments and the partnership of
 the private sector and the government. Improving U.S. technology
 requires a long-term commitment and a series of changes by
 industry and government over time. Whether as independent CEO's
 or as an industry, the members of the CSPP are committed to and
 will remain involved in this process. CSPP believes that the high
 performance computing and communication program will constitute
 an important cornerstone by improving the harvest of federal R&D
 investments in computing and other pre-competitive technologies
 and by enhancing the competitiveness of the U.S. in the increasingly
 competitive global economy.


 Supercomputing Network: A Key to U.S. Competitiveness
 in Industries Based on Life-Sciences Excellence


 John S. Wold, Ph.D.
 Executive Director
 Lilly Research Laboratories
 Eli Lilly and Company


 Testimony

 U.S. Senate, Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
 Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee


 March 5, 1991




 I am John S. Wold, an executive director of Lilly Research
 Laboratories, the research-and-development division of Eli Lilly and
 Company. Lilly is a global Corporation, based in Indianapolis, Indiana,
 that applies advances in the life sciences, electronics, and materials
 sciences to basic human needs -- health care and nutrition. We
 compete in the pharmaceutical, medical-devices, diagnostic-products,
 and animal health-products industries.

 My responsibilities at Lilly include the company's supercomputing
 program. With me is my colleague, Dr. Riaz Abdulla -- whom you just
 saw on videotape. Riaz manages this program on a day-to-day basis.
 I'm indeed pleased to have this opportunity to present my
 company's views about the importance of a national commitment to
 supercomputing and to a supercomputing network.

 I'm sure that this subcommittee has heard -- and will hear much
 more -- about the underlying technology required to support the
 evolution of supercomputers and supercomputing networks. It's
 important, I believe, that you share computing technologists'
 excitement about their visions of supercomputing systems,
 algorithms, and networks. But I believe it is just as important for you
 to share the visions that motivate research-oriented institutions, like
 Lilly, to invest in supercomputers and to encourage their scientists
 and engineers to use these systems. It's important for you to hear
 supercomputer users support S. 272.

 Today, I'll try to articulate two levels of aspirations we at Lilly have
 for our supercomputing program:

 -    First, we believe that Lilly scientists will use these powerful
 new research tools to address fundamental research questions.
 Answers to these questions will help us develop more-selective,
 more-specific drugs with greater efficacy and fewer side effects.
 These new medicines will represent important new products for our
 company and support high quality, cost-effective health care for tens
 of millions of people.

 -    Second, we believe that Lilly scientists will use these powerful
 new research tools to expand the range of fundamental questions
 they can explore. They may even use these systems to devise
 entirely new ways of conducting research programs that probe the
 staggering complexity of the human body.

 In fact, supercomputing represents a revolution...a new wave...a
 "paradigm shift" in the development of modern technology. In the
 years ahead, scientists at Lilly and at other institutions will use this
 extraordinary research tool to do things that we simply cannot
 anticipate today. For instance, it's unlikely that pioneers of molecular
 biology foresaw the applications of recombinant DNA technology that
 have unfolded in the past I5 years or so.

 Let's move, however, from the general to the specific. I'd like to
 discuss supercomputing in the context of one company's decision.
 making.

 The investment by Eli Lilly and Company of millions of dollars in
 supercomputing systems and training was a very basic business
 decision. We believe that this technology will help us effectively
 pursue our company's mission and meet its goals in. an ever-more
 challenging environment. Today, I'll focus on our pharmaceutical
 business. But many of the following points are also relevant to our
 other businesses.

 Long-term success in the research-based pharmaceutical industry
 depends on one factor: innovation. We must discover and develop
 new products that address patients' unmet needs. We must discover
 and develop cost-effective new products that offer economic benefits
 to patients, payors, and society as a whole. Whenever possible, we
 must market innovative new products before our competitors do.

 Innovation has never come easy in this industry. The diseases that
 afflict our species represent some of the most daunting of all
 scientific mysteries. Consequently, pharmaceutical R&D has
 traditionally been a high-risk...complex... time-consuming...and costly
 enterprise.

 How risky is pharmaceutical R&D? Scientists generally evaluate
 thousands of compounds to identify one that is sufficiently promising
 to merit development. Of every five drug candidates that begin
 development, only one ultimately proves sufficiently safe and
 effective to warrant marketing.

 The risk does not end there, however. A recent study by Professor
 Henry Grabowski, of Duke University, showed that only 3 of 10 new
 pharmaceutical products introduced in the United States during the
 1970s actually generated any profits for the companies that
 developed them.

 How complex is pharmaceutical R&D? Consider just some of the
 hurdles involved in the evaluation of each potential pharmaceutical
 product that enters the development process:

 - We must complete scores of laboratory tests that probe potential
 safety and efficacy.

 - We must manage global clinical tests of safety and efficacy that
 involve thousands of patients in a dozen or more countries.

 - We must formulate dosage forms of each product that best deliver
 the active ingredients to patients.

 - We must develop high-quality, cost-effective, environmentally
 sound manufacturing processes for compounds that are often very
 complex chemical entities.

 - We must prepare mountains of research data for submission to
 regulatory authorities in countries around the world. For instance,
 one of our recent submissions to the U.S. Food and Drug
 Administration involved 900,000 pages of data assembled in well
 over 1,000 volumes.

 How time-consuming are these complex R&D programs? Let's go step
 by step. It usually takes several years to establish a discovery-
 research program in which scientists begin to identify promising
 compounds. It typically takes from 5 to 8 years for us to conduct all
 the tests required to evaluate each drug candidate. Then it takes
 another 3 to 4 years for regulatory authorities to consider a new
 drug application and approve the marketing of the new product.

 Consider this example. The Lilly product Prozac represents an
 important new treatment for patients suffering from major
 depressive disorder. Although we introduced Prozac to the U.S.
 medical community in 1988, this innovative product came from a
 research program that began in the mid-l960s. The bottom line is
 that discovery-research programs often take a total of two decades
 or more to yield new products.

 How costly are these long, complicated R&D programs? Last year, a
 Tufts University group estimated that the discovery and
 development of a new pharmaceutical product during the l980s
 required an investment of some $231 million in 1987 U.S. dollars.

 That number is increasing rapidly. One reason is the ever-more
 meticulous safety testing of drug candidates in humans. In the mid-
 l970s, for instance, clinical trials of the Lilly oral antibiotic Ceclor
 involved 1,400 patients. But recent clinical studies of our oral-
 antibiotic candidate Lorabid encompassed 10,000 patients. Clinical-
 trial costs constitute the largest portion of total drug-development
 expenses -- and they have skyrocketed in recent years.

 At Lilly, we believe that it will take $400 million to develop each of
 our current drug candidates. And those costs do not include the
 expenses required to build manufacturing facilities -- expenses that
 can climb well into nine figures for hard-to-manufacture products.
 Pharmaceutical R&D has become a "big science." The R&D programs
 that yield new drugs need the same kinds of technical, management,
 and financial commitment required to develop the most imposing
 high technology products -- including supercomputers themselves.

 I want to mention another dimension of our business environment.
 The research-based pharmaceutical industry is unusually
 competitive and cosmopolitan. Historically, no single company has
 held more than 5 percent of the global market. Based on sales, the 10
 or 12 top-ranking companies are very tightly clustered, compared
 with most industries. These companies are based in France, Germany,
 Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States.

 I would like to note that many of our competitors abroad are
 mammoth technology-based corporations, such as Bayer, CIBA-
 GEIGY, Hoechst, Hoffman-La Roche, Imperial Chemical Industries, and
 Sandoz. These are truly formidable firms with superb technical
 resources. Their pharmaceutical operations represent relatively small
 portions of their total sales. By contrast, U.S. pharmaceutical
 companies are, for the most part, smaller companies that have
 focused their resources on human-health-care innovation.

 In this competitive industry, the United States has an excellent
 record of innovation. For instance, nearly half of the 60 new
 medicines that won global acceptance between 1975 and 1986 were
 discovered by U.S.-based scientists. In addition, the pharmaceutical
 industry has consistently made positive contributions to this nation's
 trade balance.

 Over the past half decade, however, the research-based
 pharmaceutical industry has experienced major changes. The rapid
 escalation of R&D costs has helped precipitate major structural
 changes in a sector of the global economy where the United States is
 an established leader. An unprecedented wave of mergers,
 acquisitions, and joint ventures has led to fewer, larger competitors.
 In several cases, foreign companies have assumed control of U.S.
 firms.

 Competition in the research-based pharmaceutical industry will only
 become more challenging during the 1990s and beyond.
 Consequently, Lilly has evaluated many opportunities to reinforce its
 capacity to innovate -- to reinforce its capacity to compete.
 Supercomputing is a case in point:

 - We believe that these powerful systems will help our scientists
 pursue innovation.
 - We believe that these systems will help us compete.

 Now, let's move from business to science. Scientists have long been
 frustrated in their efforts to address the fundamental questions of
 pharmaceutical R&D. Only recently have we been able to begin
 probing these questions. We've begun to probe them not through
 experimentation but through the computational science of molecular
 modeling. Prominent among these scientific priorities are the
 following:

       - The quantitative representation of interactions between drug
 candidates and drug targets, especially receptors and enzymes

       - The process by which proteins -- huge molecules that are
 fundamental to life -- are "folded" into distinct con- figurations
 through natural biological processes

       - The properties that enable catalysts to facilitate essential
 chemical reactions required to produce pharmaceutical products.

       Today, I'd like to discuss the first of these challenges.  I'll
 concentrate on the interaction of drug candidates with receptors.

       As you know, normal biological processes -- the beating of the
 heart, the clotting of blood, the processing of information by the
 brain -- involve complex biochemical chain reactions, sometimes
 referred to as "cascades."

       Let me give you an example.  During these chain reactions,
 natural substances in the body cause certain substances in the body
 to produce other molecules, which, in turn, cause either the next
 biochemical step in the cascade or a specific response by an organ or
 tissue -- a movement, a thought, the secretion of a hormone.

       Over the years, scientists have found that disease often occurs
 when there is either too much or too little of a key molecule in one of
 these biological cascades.  As a result, research groups are studying
 these chain reactions, which are fundamental to life itself.

       The natural substances involved in these processes link with, or
 bind to, large molecules, called receptors, which are located on the
 surfaces of cells.  We often use this analogy:  a natural substance fits
 into a receptor, much like a key fits into a lock.  Many scientists at
 Lilly -- at all research-based pharmaceutical companies -- are
 focusing their studies on receptors involved in a host of diseases,
 ranging from depression and anxiety to heart attack and stroke.
 Their goal is to better understand these locks and then to design and
 to synthesize chemical keys that fit into them.

       In some cases, we want to design chemical agents that activate
 the receptor and stimulate a biochemical event. Compounds called
 agonists serve as keys that open the locks. In other cases, we want to
 synthesize chemical agents that block the receptor and stop a natural
 substance from binding to the receptor.  These compounds, called
 antagonists, prevent the biological locks from working.

       Unfortunately, this drug-design process is fraught with problems.
 Most importantly, receptors are not typical locks. They are complex
 proteins composed of thousands of atoms. Moreover, they are in
 constant, high-speed motion within the body's natural aqueous
 environment.

       This brings us to one of the most promising applications of
 supercomputing technology.  Mathematicians can formulate
 equations that describe virtually anything we experience or
 imagine:  the soft-drink can on your desk or the motion of the liquid
 in that can as you gently swirl it during a telephone conversation.
 Each can be expressed in numbers.

       Of course, those examples are relatively simple.  But scientists
 can also develop equations that describe the remarkable complexity
 of meteorological phenomena...geological formations...and key
 molecules involved in the body's natural processes.  In recent years,
 they have developed mathematical models describing the realistic
 motion -- the bending, rotation, and vibration -- of chemical bonds in
 large molecules, such as receptors.  These models are emerging as
 important tools for scientists probing how potential drug candidates
 would likely affect the target receptors.

       These mathematical descriptions are based on equations
 involving billions of numbers.  Conventional computers take days,
 weeks, or even longer to perform related calculations. But
 supercomputers do this work in fractions of a second.  A second
 computer then translates the results into graphic representations on
 a terminal screen.

       These graphic representations can serve as a new
 communications medium -- and new "language" -- for scientists.
 Teams of scientists can share the same visualized image of how a
 specific chemical agent would likely affect the receptor in question.
 They can quickly evaluate the probable effects of modifications in
 the chemical.  They can generate entirely new ideas -- and analyze
 them.  They can focus the painfully slow efforts required to
 synthesize and test compounds on those agents that appear to have
 genuine potential.

       Supercomputers enable scientists to see what no one else has
 seen.  Historically, technical breakthroughs that have dramatically
 expanded the range of human perception -- from early telescopes
 and microscopes to modern cyclotrons and electron microscopes --
 have enabled the research community to make landmark discoveries,
 develop revolutionary inventions, and pioneer new academic
 disciplines.  We have every reason to believe that supercomputing
 can do the same.

       Now, let's return to the Lilly experience.  Several years ago, the
 interest in supercomputing began to grow at Lilly Research
 Laboratories.  We considered a number of ways to evaluate this
 research tool.  Obviously, supercomputers don't do anything by
 themselves.  They would only be relevant to our mission and our
 goals if Lilly scientists actively and creatively embraced them.  We
 had to see whether our biologists, chemists, and pharmacologists
 could really apply those graphic representations of receptors and
 enzymes to real drug-discovery problems.

       In January 1988, we took the first step:  Lilly became an
 industrial partner in the National Center for Supercomputing
 Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois.  This opportunity to
 learn about supercomputing afforded us by interacting with the
 NCSA proved to be an essential element in our supercomputing
 decision.  Many of our scientists were in- deed interested in learning
 how to use supercomputers.  Many of them quickly began to apply
 the systems to their work.

       In April 1990, our supercomputing program took a great step
 forward with the installation of a Cray 2S-2/128 system at our
 central laboratories in Indianapolis.  Lilly scientists are using the
 system at a far greater rate than we expected.  In the meantime,
 we've maintained our relationship with the NCSA to ensure
 maximum support for our program and to keep abreast of new
 developments in the field.

       Our experience to date suggests three interrelated advantages of
 supercomputing that we believe will make Lilly even more
 competitive in the years ahead.

       - We believe these systems will speed up the identification of
 promising drug candidates.  Supercomputing will enable Lilly
 scientists to design new drug candidates that they otherwise would
 not have even considered.  Supercomputing may well cut days,
 weeks, even months from the overall process required to identify
 novel compounds.

       - We believe these systems will foster great collaboration among
 scientists from various disciplines who are involved in
 pharmaceutical R&D.  Productive research in our industry
 increasingly depends on teamwork.  supercomputer-generated
 graphic simulations help scientists with diverse academic training to
 share the same vision of crucial data. Again, these visual images
 become a common language for scientists with different academic
 training.

       Moreover, supercomputing will make these multidisciplinary
 research efforts more spontaneous, energetic, and intense.  In the
 past, our research was a step-by-step process in which long periods
 often separated the formulation of ideas from experiments required
 to test those ideas. But supercomputing helps teams of scientists
 integrate their ideas and tests into a dynamic, interactive process.
 These systems facilitate the communication, creativity, and decision
 making that are critical to productive R & D programs.

       - We believe these systems will encourage truly visionary
 exploration.  A spirit of unfettered inquiry drives scientific progress.
 In the past, however, scientists were unable to test many novel ideas
 because they didn't have sufficient computing power.  Now,
 supercomputers are motivating our scientists to ask "what if?" more
 boldly than ever before -- and to help them quickly consider many
 possible answers to their questions.

       It's especially interesting to watch scientists actually get familiar
 with supercomputing.  As you know, good scientists are among the
 most independent people in any society. They respect good theories.
 But they demand empirical data to support the theories.  In six
 months, I've seen some pretty tough-minded chemists move from
 skepticism to genuine enthusiasm for these systems.  Moreover, we
 clearly see that many of the very brightest young Ph.D.s coming out
 of graduate school are very enthusiastic about this technology.  Our
 supercomputing capabilities have become a recruiting magnet.

       I want to stress that supercomputing is only one of a number of
 powerful new technologies that research-based pharmaceutical
 companies are applying to their drug-discovery programs.  But it's a
 very powerful scientific tool -- a tool that will become all the more
 powerful with networking capabilities.

       - A supercomputer network will greatly facilitate the dynamic
 collaboration among scientists at different locations -- often different
 institutions.  Lilly scientists are working with research groups at
 universities and high technology companies around the world.  A
 national supercomputer network would greatly enhance the
 effectiveness of joint efforts with our colleagues at the University of
 Michigan or the University of Washington at Seattle, for example.

       - A supercomputer network will help us optimize scarce
 scientific talent during a period when we're almost certain to
 experience major shortfalls in the availability of Ph.D.- level
 scientists.  I would go so far as to suggest that the visualization
 capabilities of supercomputing may actually help attract more of the
 best and the brightest into the sciences -- this at a time when key
 industries in the U.S. economy desperately need such talent.

         Finally, I can't overemphasize that a supercomputing network
 will help scientists ask questions whose answers they could never
 seriously pursue before.  Tens of thousands of our best thinkers will
 find applications for this technology that will totally outstrip any
 predictions that we venture today.  Supercomputing represents a
 revolution.  a new wave...a paradigm shift in the development of
 modern technology.

       In conclusion, I want to stress two points.  We believe that
 supercomputers and a national supercomputing network are
 important to our company, to our industry, and to the medical
 professionals and patients we serve.  We believe that super-
 computing will play a crucial role in many technology-based
 industries and in the growth of national economies that depend on
 these industries.  Again, we strongly recommend the enactment of S.
 272.

       Thank you.