| DOE INCITE Program Awards 95 Million Hours |
| Supercomputers are playing an increasingly important role in scientific research by allowing scientists to create more accurate models of complex processes, to simulate problems once thought to be impossible, and to analyze vast amounts of data generated by experiments. Scientists engaged in such pursuits can never have access to too many computational resources. Needless to say, the demand for computing hours on powerful machines far exceeds the supply of supercomputing time. |
| For some scientists, however, time is now on their side. As part of the 2007 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact On Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, DOE has awarded 45 projects a total of 95 million hours of computing time on some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. DOE’s Under Secretary for Science Dr. Raymond Orbach presented this year’s awards on January 8 at the Council on Competitiveness in Washington, DC. |
| “The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has one of the top ten most powerful supercomputers in the world and four of the top 100 and we’re proud to provide these resources to help researchers advance scientific knowledge and understanding,” Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said. “I look forward to witnessing the promise of these efforts as some of the world’s greatest thinking minds use some of the world’s greatest thinking computers.” |
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| Figure 3. Front row, left to right: Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, Under Secretary for Science, DOE; Deborah L. Wince Smith, President, Council on Competitiveness. Back Row, left to right: Suzy Tichenor, Vice President, Council on Competitiveness; Michael Garrett, Director, Airplane Configuration, Integration & Performance, Boeing Commercial Airplanes; Dr. Robert Fisher, Deputy Astrophysics Group Leader, Flash Center, University of Chicago; Dr. Benoit Roux, University of Chicago; Tom Lange, Director, Modeling and Simulation Corporate R&D, Procter & Gamble; Dr. Michael Strayer, Associate Director of Science for Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Office of Science, DOE. |
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| Launched in 2003, the INCITE mission is to advance American science and industrial competitiveness. The awards further that mission by supporting computationally intensive, large-scale research projects with large amounts of dedicated time on supercomputers at DOE’s Leadership Computing Facilities at ORNL and ANL, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at LBNL, and the Molecular Science Computing Facility at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The projects were chosen based on the potential scientific and engineering impact of the research and the projects’ suitability for supercomputer use.
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| “One of the most important aspects of the INCITE program is that the resulting knowledge will largely be available, so that the information and technologies can be used by other researchers, further broadening the impact of this work,” Dr. Orbach said. “Our scientific leadership underpins nearly every aspect of our economy and by making these resources available to a broad range of science and engineering disciplines, we believe the resulting work will make us more competitive in the years and decades to come.” |
| Research areas to be addressed in 2007 include accelerator physics, astrophysics, chemical sciences, climate research, computer science, engineering physics, environmental science, fusion energy, life sciences, materials science, nuclear physics, and nuclear engineering. The research will have a wide range of practical applications including designing quieter cars and better commercial aircraft, advancing fusion research, studying supernovae and global climate change, understanding nanomaterials, and investigating the causes of Parkinson’s disease. |
| Among the award recipients are researchers at Auburn University, Fisk University, Northwestern, the University of Alaska–Fairbanks, the University of California campuses at Davis, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Cruz, the University of Chicago, the University of Colorado, the University of Michigan, the University of Rochester, the University of Washington, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. DOE scientists receiving awards this year conduct research at ANL, LBNL, LANL, ORNL, SNL, the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Awards were also made to researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Germany. |
Nine of the projects selected for 2007 INCITE awards are from industry, doubling the number from last year—a clear indication that U.S. industry has realized the potential benefits of our nation’s investment in high-end computing. Firms receiving awards for the first time include Corning Inc., Fluent Inc., General Motors, and Procter and Gamble. Firms with renewed awards are DreamWorks Animation, Pratt and Whitney, The Boeing Co., and General Atomics.
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