Figure 3: Grand Challenge Applications. Some major applications that
will be enabled by parallel supercomputers.
The President has instituted this year, the five-year federal High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative. This will spur the development of the technology described above and is focused on the solution of grand challenges shown in Figure 3. These are fundamental problems in science and engineering, with broad economic and scientific impact, whose solution could be advanced by applying high performance computing techniques and resources.
The activities of several federal agencies have been coordinated in this initiative. DARPA is developing the basic technology, which are applied to the grand challenges by DOE, NASA, NSF, NIH, EPA, and NOAA. Selected activities include the mapping of the human genome in DOE, climate modeling in DOE and NOAA, coupled structural and airflow simulations of advanced powered lift, and a high-speed civil transport by NASA.