Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., introduced a bill May 18 that aims to accelerate the advancement of supercomputing programs at the Department of Energy (DoE).
The Next Generation Computing Research and Development Act would upgrade DoE’s Energy Sciences Network, which is a high-speed computer network DoE runs, to optimize data sharing and support “energy-efficient computing, computing workforce development, and applied mathematics and software development activities,” according to a release.
“The future of innovation lies in our ability to unlock new answers about the workings of our world. Those answers will only come with the help of the next generation of supercomputers,” Rep. Obernolte, ranking member of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, said.
“The Next Generation Computing Research and Development Act will help American scientists and students lead the way in advanced computing and find new answers to problems including predicting weather patterns, helping to prevent wildfires, improving our national defense, and strengthening our energy grid,” Rep. Obernolte continued.
The bill aims to build on the work done in DoE’s Exascale Computing Project, which is a collaboration between DoE’s Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration that looks to create a computing system with 50 times more computational power than DoE high-performance computing systems like Titan or Sequoia, according to DoE.
The bill has been introduced and referred to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The full text of the bill has not yet been publicly released.
