National Science Foundation

NSF supports and elaborates upon the Federal HPCC Program goals of extending U.S. technological leadership in high performance computing and communications, accelerating wide dissemination and application of technologies to speed the pace of innovation and to serve the national interests in many critical areas, and spurring gains in U.S. productivity and industrial competitiveness through the use of high performance computing and networking technologies. Program objectives, as the term is used here, refers to more specific ends, the attainment of which signals a major step toward achieving programmatic goals. For NSF, the objectives include:

Developing national research and education networking services and capabilities for connecting universities, high schools, research laboratories, libraries, and businesses at speeds of up to one billion bits per second;
Providing early access to new generations of scalable parallel high performance computers and software technologies in order to achieve performance of one trillion computer calculations per second on application areas representing Grand Challenges;
Generating fundamental knowledge with the potential for radically changing the state of high performance computing and communications;
Creating a cadre of scientists, engineers, and technical personnel knowledgeable in the ideas, methods, and value of computational science and engineering and prepared to take advantage of these new capabilities;
Encouraging industrial partnerships and affiliations to enhance innovation, technology transfer and U.S. productivity and industrial competitiveness;
Making advanced computing and communications information infrastructure available to a larger segment of the society to solve information intensive National Challenges and advance education.

The NSF strategy for meeting its goals and objectives consists of balanced programs of support for:

Individual investigators performing long-term curiosity-driven research;
Small group research teams studying single, broader problems;
Grand Challenge Applications Groups working on complex problems requiring multidisciplinary teams;
Science and Technology centers, targeted on major and significant research areas;
Deployment of infrastructure, including general availability of networking services, access to specialized high performance computing capabilities, and provision of local small-scale state-of-art computing instrumentation; and
Developing new opportunities and technologies for enhancing science and engineering education.

For FY 1997, NSF has restructured its program into activities that reflect recommendations incorporated in reports such as the CIC Strategic Implementation Plan 'America in the Age of Information' and the National Research Council report 'Evolving the High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative to Support the Nation's Information Infrastructure.' This restructuring reflects both the Strategic Focus Areas of the CIC plan and the structure of the NSF. The new organization of the program is reflected in the following seven activity sheets; the original seventeen activities are included to capture past accomplishments and to help elucidate the transition.


FY 97 President's Request by Program Component Area
Program Activity Budget Account Code Partner/User Agencies Budget (BA, $ M) HPCC PCAs by 1997 Pres. Request
FY95 Actual FY96 Pres. FY96 Est. FY97 Rqst. HECC LSN HCS HuCS ETHR
NSFNET   All HPCC Agencies 44.18 46.22 44.04 41.64   41.64      
Supercomputer centers   DARPA, NASA, NIH 70.91 74.90 69.36 57.73 57.73        
Computing Systems           47.16 45.95   1.21    
Human centered Systems           48.10       48.10  
Networking, Communications and the Convergence of Computing & Comm   DARPA, DOE, NASA       19.92   19.92      
Applications   DARPA, NASA, NIST, NOAA       55.21 25.49 8.20   9.66 11.86
Education and Training   DARPA, NASA, NIST, NOAA 20.66 20.24 16.62 9.75   2.50     7.25
Research centers     10.68 11.08 11.38            
Research Infrastructure     19.23 21.59 18.20            
Grand Challenge Applications Groups   DARPA, EPA 12.83 7.25 7.32            
Computing Systems and Components     19.58 22.33 17.20            
Software Systems and Algorithms     29.82 29.01 26.66            
Ubiquitous Computing and Communications   DARPA, DOE, NASA 10.52 14.80 14.44            
Human-Machine Interaction and Information Access   DARPA 20.14 14.55 15.69            
Biological Sciences (non-NC/GC)     9.89 11.43 12.42            
Engineering (non-NC/GC)     19.81 3.98 4.73            
Geosciences (non-NC/GC)   NASA, NOAA 4.28 3.59 4.66            
Computational Mathematics (non-NC/GC)     8.14 6.11 8.19            
Physical Sciences (non-NC/GC)   NIST 10.68 7.09 9.50            
Social Behavioral & Economic Sciences (non-NC/GC)     3.10 2.14 2.14            
National Challenges   DARPA, NASA 7.28 17.33 8.55            
Totals: 321.73 313.64 291.10 279.51 129.17 72.26 1.21 57.76 19.11


Comparison of FY 97 and FY96 Budgets by Program Component Area
Program Activity Budget (BA, $ M) HPCC PCAs by 1997 Pres. Request HPCC PCAs by 1996 Estimated
FY95 Actual FY96 Pres. FY96 Est. FY97 Rqst. HECC LSN HCS HuCS ETHR HECC LSN HCS HuCS ETHR
NSFNET 44.18 46.22 44.04 41.64   41.64         44.04      
Supercomputing centers 70.91 74.90 69.36 57.73 57.73         69.36        
Computing Systems       47.16 45.95   1.21              
Human centered Systems       48.10       48.10            
Networking, Communications and the Convergence of Computing & Comm       19.92   19.92                
Applications       55.21 25.49 8.20   9.66 11.86          
Education and Training 20.66 20.24 16.62 9.75   2.50     7.25   2.50     14.12
Research centers 10.68 11.08 11.38             6.30 0.68     4.40
Research Infrastructure 19.23 21.59 18.20             8.64 2.48   4.78 2.30
Grand Challenge Applications Groups 12.83 7.25 7.32             7.32        
Computing Systems and Components 19.58 22.33 17.20             17.20        
Software Systems and Algorithms 29.82 29.01 26.66             26.66        
Ubiquitous Computing and Communications 10.52 14.80 14.44               14.44      
Human-Machine Interaction and Information Access 20.14 14.55 15.69               5.29   6.80 3.60
Biological Sciences (non-NC/GC) 9.89 11.43 12.42               12.42      
Engineering (non-NC/GC) 19.81 3.98 4.73             1.65 1.38   1.70  
Geosciences (non-NC/GC) 4.28 3.59 4.66             3.19 1.47      
Computational Mathematics (non-NC/GC) 8.14 6.11 8.19               2.67   2.00 3.52
Physical Sciences (non-NC/GC) 10.68 7.09 9.50               6.41     3.09
Social Behavioral & Economic Sciences (non-NC/GC) 3.10 2.14 2.14               2.14      
National Challenges 7.28 17.33 8.55               8.55      
Totals: 321.73 313.64 291.10 279.51 129.17 72.26 1.21 57.76 19.11 140.32 104.47   15.28 31.03