Institute Makes the Case for Computing to Congress

On July 10, 2013, The Council on Competitiveness, in conjunction with the U.S. House of Representatives Science and National Labs Caucus, held a briefing titled Extreme Computing: Why United States Industry, National Labs, and Academia Need Advanced Computing.


Bestavros speaks at congressional briefing
Institute Director, Azer Bestavros (far right), participates in a Congressional Briefing on Advanced Computing. Picture Courtesy of Emily Burlij, Boston University, Federal Relations.

The briefing aimed to educate congressional staff on the following areas around extreme and advanced computing:

  • What is advanced computing and why does it matter to US citizens and to the US economy?
  • How do US industry and national labs use high performance computing to push innovation in such areas as manufacturing, reducing costs and time to market?
  • How can extreme computing help industry, national labs and academia understand and exploit “big data” and large-scale simulations?
  • What must the US do to maintain leadership in high performance computing and stay ahead of competitors like China?

Dr. Azer Bestavros, Founding Director of Boston University’s Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science and Engineering, was one of  four distinguished speakers on the panel. In his prepared remarks and in follow-up discussion with congressional staff he shared insights on the Massachusetts Green High Performance Center (MGHPCC) and the opportunities that “HPC in the cloud” could offer to society and the importance of securing and hardening our cloud computing infrastructure.

In addition, following the briefing the Council partnered with Intel, IEEE-USA, and Boston University to host a reception for Members of Congress, congressional staff, and other key stakeholders in high performance computing. It was a wonderful evening of networking for all. Representative Hultgren and Representative Fattah, both co-chairs of the Science and National Labs Caucus, spoke at the briefing and spend time at the reception.

In a thank you note to Boston University, The Council noted that members of the congressional staff and guests were“thrilled to learn of this historic collaboration among the five MGHPCC universities, state government and private industry and its partnership with K-12 public schools and community colleges on new educational and workforce development initiatives.”