WASHINGTON—In response to the introduction of the National Science Foundation for the Future Act, which addresses in part the need to increase access to supercomputing resources for researchers in regions and demographic groups that currently lack access to these systems, Hodan Omaar, policy analyst at the Center for Data Innovation, released the following statement:
Scientific researchers need more access to powerful computing systems to conduct their valuable work. This bill is an important step toward ensuring that researchers can more efficiently utilize the high-performance computing (HPC) systems available today and the places and people that need them most receive the systems acquired in the future.
While researchers in some states, such as Alabama, Indiana, Utah, and Georgia are conducting high levels of research to solve important problems, these states lack access to powerful local HPC resources. Similarly, while minority-serving institutions serve a significant portion of the country’s Black, Asian, and Hispanic researchers, these institutions typically do not have access to the type of HPC resources that non–minority-serving institutions do.
By investing in computing resources, policymakers can equip researchers with the tools they need to solve challenges in a wide range of fields, including defense, healthcare, and climate change.
