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.