IT for the 21st Century Featured in Budget Proposal

By Lisa Thompson

President Clinton unveiled his Fiscal Year 2000 budget plan on February 1, making good on a promise in his State of the Union address to request a 28 percent increase for computing and communications research. The proposed increase is incorporated in a new research initiative, Information Technology for the Twenty-First Century (IT2), which draws heavily on the recommendations that the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) made in its Interim Report (see CRN, November 1998).

"The budget proposes a bold, new Information Technology Initiative that will invest in long-term, fundamental research in computing and communications, and will increase development and purchases of extremely fast supercomputers ... Long-term information technology research will strengthen America's leadership in an industry that accounts for one-third of our economic growth, create high-tech, high-wage jobs, and improve our quality of life."

"Investments for the Twenty-First Century," U.S. Budget, FY 2000

The $366 million initiative would support research in three categories: long-term information technology research that will lead to fundamental breakthroughs in computing and communications ($228 million); advanced computing for science, engineering, and the nation ($123 million); and research on the economic and social implications of information technologies ($15 million). The latter activity would also include efforts to help train additional information technology workers at universities.

Six federal agencies plan to participate in the initiative: the National Science Foundation ($146 million), the Department of Defense (DoD)($100 million), the Department of Energy (DoE)($70 million), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ($38 million), the National Institutes of Health ($6 million), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ($6 million).

The President's Advisor for Science and Technology, Neal Lane, and other research agency officials appeared at a briefing on the science and technology components of the budget plan, and information technologies R&D had center stage. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Jacques Gansler described DoD's participation in the initiative as critical, given the Joint Chiefs of Staff directive that information superiority be a top strategic objective. NASA Director Dan Goldin noted that everything his agency wants to accomplish depends on advances in information technology. And NOAA Director James Baker said the initiative will "have enormous impact on the way [NOAA] does business."

NSF Director Rita Colwell called the initiative a "national imperative," and mentioned that NSF was pleased to be the lead agency. She said it goes to the very heart of the NSF's mission and stressed that it would benefit "every field, every discipline, and every level of education." The NSF's investment comprises $110 million for research on software systems, scalable information infrastructure, high-end computing, and on the social, economic, and workforce impacts of information technologies, with an additional $36 million for development of terascale computing systems. The NSF budget proposal includes a 41.5 percent increase for the Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering Directorate (CISE) to accommodate the new programs.

DoE's role in the initiative, which mostly falls under the advanced computing category, was described by Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson. A new program, the Scientific Simulation Initiative (SSI), would be established to build on the existing Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative. While ASCI serves the DoE's nuclear weapons mission, SSI would be a civilian program designed to develop and deploy advanced computers to probe extremely complex scientific questions of interest to DoE and to improve environmental monitoring.

A new senior management team has been formed within the National Science and Technology Council to set policy and coordinate initiative activities. It will report directly to Lane, and consist of the Directors or Under Secretaries of the participating agencies as well as senior officials from the Office of Management and Budget and the National Economic Council. The team will assist the President in establishing and monitoring goals for the program and allocating research tasks to the agencies on the basis of their missions and capabilities.

The management team is being supported by a working group chaired by the NSF's Assistant Director, Ruzena Bajcsy (CISE). NSF was chosen to lead this group since it is the only agency that will support research in all three thrusts of the initiative. The working group has been charged with preparing research plans and budgets for the entire effort, ensuring that the research projects funded through the initiative result in a sound and balanced research portfolio. High priority has been placed on ensuring that agency funds are distributed in an open, competitive process aimed at supporting the best possible ideas. Administration officials estimate that at least 60 percent of the funding will go to universities.

Funding for each agency's participation in the initiative will have to be approved by Congress in the appropriations process, which will culminate in passage of thirteen separate spending measures later in the year. Fiscal Year 2000 begins October 1, 1999. The CRA Government Affairs website features pages on the IT2 initiative and the FY 2000 budget request (www.cra.org/main/cra.gov.html), with additional information and links to related sites, including official federal budget documents and the final PITAC report when it's released.