[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 117 (Tuesday, June 18, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 28338-28339]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-12866]
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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Request for Information on Update to Strategic Computing
Objectives
AGENCY: Networking and Information Technology Research and Development
(NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO), National Science
Foundation.
ACTION: Notice of request for information.
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SUMMARY: On behalf of the National Science and Technology Council's
(NSTC) Fast-Track Action Committee (FTAC) on Strategic Computing (SC),
NITRD NCO requests input from all interested parties on the goals and
necessary approaches for sustaining and enhancing U.S. scientific,
technological, and economic leadership in strategic computing.
DATES: Comments must be submitted on or before 11:59 p.m. (ET) on
August 23, 2019.
ADDRESSES: Comments may be sent by any of the following methods:
Email: [email protected]. Email submissions
should be machine-readable and not be copy-protected. Submissions
should include ``RFI Response: Strategic Computing Research and
Development'' in the subject line of the message.
Fax: (202) 459-9673, Attn: Ji Lee; or
Mail: Attn: Ji Lee, NITRD NCO, 2415 Eisenhower Avenue,
Alexandria, VA 22314, USA.
Instructions: Response to this RFI is voluntary. Each individual or
institution is requested to submit only one response. Submissions must
not exceed 10 pages in 12 point or larger font, with a page number
provided on each page. Responses should include the name of the
person(s) or organization(s) filing the comment.
Responses to this RFI may be posted online at http://www.nitrd.gov.
Therefore, we request that no business proprietary information,
copyrighted information, or personally identifiable information be
submitted in response to this RFI.
In accordance with FAR 15.202(3), responses to this notice are not
offers and cannot be accepted by the Federal government to form a
binding contract. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses
associated with responding to this RFI.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ji Lee at (202) 459-9674 or
[email protected], or by mail to 2415 Eisenhower Avenue,
Alexandria, VA 22314, USA. Individuals who use a telecommunications
device for the deaf (TDD) may call the Federal Information Relay
Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339 between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Eastern
time, Monday through Friday.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The National Science and Technology
Council's (NSTC) Fast-Track Action Committee (FTAC) on Strategic
Computing (SC), NITRD NCO requests input from all interested parties on
the goals and necessary approaches for sustaining and enhancing U.S.
scientific, technological, and economic leadership in strategic
computing. This includes the national high-performance computing
ecosystem (as outlined in the National Stratetic Computing Initiative
Strategic Plan) as well as research, development, and deployment. This
Request for Information (RFI) seeks input on whether the strategic
computing objectives should be revised and, if so, how. Comments about
existing strategic objectives (i.e., suggestions to add, remove, or
modify the objectives) and their past or future implementation by the
Federal government are requested. All interested parties including
those engaged in strategic computing research and development (R&D) and
those affected by such R&D are welcome to respond. Responses will
inform the NITRD NCO and the FTAC on SC on updating the goals and
approaches for strategic computing R&D.
Background: In 2015, the National Strategic Computing Initiative
(NSCI) was launched to sustain and enhance U.S. leadership in strategic
computing. The NSCI Strategic Plan, released in 2016, established five
strategic objectives in collaboration with industry and academia:
1. Accelerating the delivery of capable exascale computing systems
2. Increasing technology coherence between technology base used for
modeling and simulation and that used for data analytic computing
3. Establishing, over the next 15 years, a viable path forward for
future HPC systems, even after the limits
[[Page 28339]]
of current semiconductor technology are reached
4. Creating an enduring national HPC ecosystem
5. Developing an enduring public-private partnership to ensure that the
benefits of the research and development advances are, to the greatest
extent, shared between the United States Government and industrial and
academic sectors
Since the launch of NSCI, there have been significant near- and
long-term advances that support the efforts towards exascale computing.
There have also been changes in the technology landscape such as: The
availability of resources and usage models, the nature and requirements
of applications, and the means and methods of implementation. Examples
include the increasing role of network-centric and edge computing; the
need for improved software interoperability and sustainability; the
availability of new approaches for hardware-specific compute; and
concerns regarding the long-term future of computing architectures and
underlying technologies. As a result, it is appropriate to reexamine,
as a nation, the objectives of SC.
The Administration chartered the FTAC on SC under the NSTC to
update the goals and approaches to strategic computing R&D and ensure
continued and sustained U.S. leadership in SC. In consultation with the
NSTC Artificial Intelligence Select Committee, the NITRD Subcommittee,
the Subcommittee on Quantum Information Systems, and the Lab2Market
Subcommittee, FTAC members will consider respondent's input in
developing a SC R&D update report.
Responders are asked to answer one or more of the following
questions in the responses to the RFI:
1. What are emerging and future scientific and technical challenges
and opportunities that are central to ensuring American leadership in
SC, and what are effective mechanisms for addressing these challenges?
2. What are appropriate models for partnerships between government,
academia and industry in SC, and how can these partnerships be
effectively leveraged to advance the objectives of SC?
3. How do we develop and nurture the capable workforce with the
necessary skill and competencies to ensure American leadership in SC?
What are effective nontraditional approaches to lowering the barriers
to knowledge transfer?
4. How can technical advances in SC and other large government and
private initiatives, including infrastructure advances, provide new
knowledge and mechanisms for executing next generation research?
5. What are the future national-level use cases that will drive new
computing paradigms, and how will new computing paradigms yield new use
cases?
6. What areas of research or topics of the 2016 NSCI Strategic Plan
should continue to be a priority for federally funded research and
require continued Federal R&D investments? What areas of research or
topics of the 2016 Strategic Plan no longer need to be prioritized for
federally funded research?
7. What challenges or objectives not included in the 2016 NSCI
Strategic Plan should be strategic priorities for the federally funded
SC R&D? Discuss what new capabilities would be desired, what objectives
should guide such research, and why those capabilities and objective
should be strategic priorities.
Reference: 2016 NSCI Strategic Plan: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/NSCI%20Strategic%20Plan_20160721.pdf.pdf.
Submitted by the National Science Foundation in support of the
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD)
National Coordination Office (NCO) on June 13, 2019.
(Authority: 42 U.S.C. 1861.)
Suzanne H. Plimpton,
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation.
[FR Doc. 2019-12866 Filed 6-17-19; 8:45 am]
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