Reed's Ruminations: A Blog by Dan Reed

HPC: Making a Small Fortune

N.B. I also write for the Communications of the ACM (CACM). The following essay recently appeared on the CACM blog.

There is an old joke in the high-performance computing community that begins with a question, "How do you make a small fortune in high-performance computing?" There are several variations on the joke, but they all end with the same punch line, "Start with a large fortune and ship at least one generation of product. You will be left with a small fortune." Forty years of experience, with companies large and small, has confirmed the sad truth of this statement.

As we all know, the computing industry is extremely competitive, and new trends and technologies have repeatedly had transformative effect. One need look no further than the regular inductees to the Dead Supercomputing Society to see the devastating effects of the ongoing attack of the killer micros on the market for custom high-performance computing system designs. The microprocessor performance increases over the past thirty years due to decreasing feature sizes, higher clock rates and greater architectural complexity have repeatedly dashed the hopes of many high-performance computing entrepreneurs.

The market lesson is that one false step inevitably leads to failure, particularly for startup companies struggling to establish a new niche in the face of commodity economics. It has never been truer than in today's economy, where potential buyers are retrenching and evaluating each purchase with a discriminating and sometimes jaundiced eye. Recently, the high-performance computing industry lost several established companies to merger and acquisition, due to weak market positions. We have also seen startup companies fail due to missteps and financial pressures.

This reminds me of another old analogy, which compares building computer hardware and software to playing pinball – one's reward for playing well is the opportunity to keep playing via free games. The punishment for not playing well is equally clear; one must continue to insert quarters into the machine. Venture capitalists know this well, as they evaluate the pinball skills of those pitching business plans.

Without doubt, we need a new generation of high-performance computing systems, from consumer devices to exascale platforms, to drive innovation, improve health care, manage critical infrastructure and ensure safety and defense. The question is whether the rise of multicore and manycore chips and explicit parallelism in the commodity microprocessor and GPU markets will finally change a few of the rules of the pinball game, via a combination of consumer economics pressures and technological need, the latter due to clock frequency and power limitations.

I believe we are at an inflection point, where new approaches must both survive and flourish if we are to continue to deliver higher performance in effective and reasonable ways. It is worth remembering that Andy Grove's famous comment, "Only the paranoid survive," is but the trailing phrase in a larger, more perspicuous comment, "Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive."

We cannot be complacent about the future, especially now. We must continue to innovate, even if – especially if – that means adding quarters to the innovation machine.

NITRD Reauthorization: Enabling the Future

As a computing researcher, as chair of the Computing Research Association (CRA), and as a former member of the President's IT Advisory Committee and the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), I have spoken and written repeatedly about the state of computing research in the United States, the importance of long-term, strategic investment and the critical need for strategic, interagency planning.

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2020, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2009, which embodies many of those recommendations. As press release from the House Committee on Science and Technology notes, this reauthorization of the Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD) program

… strengthens interagency planning, coordination, and prioritization for NITRD by requiring the development and periodic update of a strategic plan informed by both industry and academia. This plan is meant to create a vision for networking and information technology R&D across the federal government, and provide specific metrics for measuring progress toward that vision.

The Road to the Present

As chair of the Computing Research Association (CRA), I was pleased to endorse H.R. 2020. Simply put, H.R. 2020 is the culmination of many years of background work, reports, discussions and Congressional hearings by diverse groups.

In July 2008, i testified before Rep. Gordon and the House Science and Technology Committee ("NITRD: Come, Let Us Reason Together"), summarizing the 2007 recommendations of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report, Leadership Under Challenge: Information Technology R&D in a Competitive World, whose production I had the privilege to co-chair. The report included the following recommendations ("PCAST, NITRD and the Future"), emphasizing the contributions of information technology to our continued prosperity and well being, something especially timely given current circumstances:

• Address the demand for skilled IT professionals by revamping curricula, increasing fellowships, and simplifying visa processes.
• Emphasize larger-scale, longer-term, multidisciplinary IT R&D and innovative, higher-risk research
• Give priority to R&D in IT systems connected with the physical world, software, digital data, and networking
• Develop and implement strategic and technical plans for the NITRD program

Thanks to the hard work of many people, all of these were addressed in the NITRD reauthorization bill. Specifically, the reauthorization includes creation of a five year strategic plan, to be updated every three years and assessed by an independent committee whose co-chairs are members of PCAST. The reauthorization also emphasizes the importance of long term, multidisciplinary research and identifies cyberphysical systems as a critical element of the research agenda.

These are sufficiently noteworthy that I feel compelled to quote from H.R. 2020, regarding the strategic plan:

(A) foster the transfer of research and development results into new technologies and applications for the benefit of society, including through cooperation and collaborations with networking and information technology research, development, and technology transition initiatives supported by the States;

(B) encourage and support mechanisms for interdisciplinary research and development in high-performance computing, including through collaborations across agencies, across Program Component Areas, with industry, with Federal laboratories (as defined in section 4 of the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 (15 U.S.C. 3703)), and with international organizations;

(C) address long-term challenges of national importance for which solutions require large-scale, long-term, interdisciplinary research and development;

(D) place emphasis on innovative and high-risk projects having the potential for substantial societal returns on the research investment; and

(E) strengthen all levels of networking and information technology education and training programs to ensure an adequate, well-trained workforce.

Yes, high-performance computing is identified explicitly, as a collaborative activity across government, industry and academia and with international partners.

Cyberphysical Systems

As some of you may recall, cyberphysical systems (i.e., computing systems that interact with the physical world) emerged as the top research priority from the PCAST assessment of NITRD needs. Today, our critical national and international infrastructure (financial systems, telecommunications, transportation, and utility grid), national security, and our personal lives (communications, biomedical devices, household appliances, automobiles and entertainment systems) are all computer enhanced and mediated.

Computing is an inseparable part of our culture and our prosperity, and ensuring the reliable, correct and secure operation of this cyberphysical infrastructure is central to our future. Hence, I am especially delighted that the reauthorization calls for a joint university/industry task force to develop a research and development agenda for cyberphysical systems, together with defining roles and responsibilities, suggesting funding mechanisms and discussing intellectual property (IP) mechanisms. I am especially pleased that IP mechanisms was identified explicitly, as I believe we need to rethink how our public-private sector partnerships are best organized for mutual benefit.

The Road Ahead

The work by the House Science and Technology Committee and the passage of H.R. 2020 by the full House paves the way for the future. We have defined a scaffold for the future. Now we must erect the enabling infrastructure for a knowledge-centric society. I am confident the new incarnation of PCAST, which includes my Microsoft colleague, Craig Mundie, will continue to watch the progress of the NITRD program as our ever-changing field helps shape our future.

Extraordinary Times, Challenges and Opportunities

I write a quarterly column for the Computing Research Association (CRA)'s newsletter, Computing Research News (CRN). The following is a preview of my upcoming column, which will appear in the May 2009 issue.

The Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, once remarked, "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." So it is with economic and social crises; they can be understood retrospectively, but must be experienced in the moment. Without doubt, these are extraordinary times, with global socioeconomic transformations most of us have heretofore experienced only via historical accounts and the stories of our elders.

Public universities are experiencing state budget recisions and reductions, and private institutions have seen the market value and operating income from endowments decline precipitously. University staff positions are being eliminated, unpaid furloughs are common, and even tenured faculty members are worried, given the financial exigency clause in most contracts. Future students fret about the cost of a college education, current students are struggling to pay tuition, and graduates face bleak job prospects across diverse disciplines.

Reinventing the University

Although these extraordinary times bring extraordinary challenges, they also bring extraordinary opportunities. Because necessity really is the mother of invention, we have a generational occasion to rethink university programs, priorities and structures; refocus corporate governance, markets and priorities; and sharpen government policies, structures and strategies. Let's consider a few lessons, leavened by history.

The modern, American university has evolved from a finishing school for the male heirs of landed gentry to a much more inclusive engine of social change, intellectual discovery and economic growth. Each punctuated step in that evolution was triggered by social and economic upheaval, from the Morrill Act of 1862, which created the land-grant institutions, through the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, which opened college education to returning veterans, to the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, which addressed odious injustice and further democratized educational access.

The nature and importance of colleges and universities and their relation to our future continue to change. The proximate skills acquired via the university experience may help land one's first job, convey the lifelong right to cheer for the athletic teams and forever encumber one with annual calls for donations from the alumni association. However, when technological change can dissolve entire industries within just a few years, and grim statistics highlight the demise of lifelong employment, those skills alone will not suffice to land one's fifth or eighth job.

This suggests that we must ask fundamental questions about the nature and role of universities, and we must renegotiate the social compact between citizens and educators. What is the appropriate balance between intellectual inquiry and practical engagement? What constitutes engaged scholarship? What are the "mechanical and industrial arts" for the 21^st century? What are the verities, the intellectual and operational truths that now dance as shadows in Plato's Cave? In short, what is the 21^st century research university and its rightful role?

I humbly suggest that universities, government and industry must rethink the nature of university education and engagement, shifting aggressively to lifelong, rather than punctuated education, and fostering multilateral science and technology incubation and support. We are not imprisoned in the ivory tower, nor are we cloistered from personal engagement.

The American research university has changed radically and repeatedly over the past century. It emerged from Cold War as a government-funded instrument of social change, economic competitiveness and national security. There is no reason, indeed ample precedent to the contrary, to believe that it will not continue to evolve rapidly and radically. The current culture is not sacrosanct, nor should it be. We in computing should be at the vanguard, shaping the definitions and the future of education, research and service.

A Final, Personal Note

As a member of the CRA Board for the past decade, it has been my pleasure to work with all of you on a topic near and dear to my heart – the future of computing research, education and policy. Whether on the Board or in the community, you have always answered the call to service, regardless of the task. It has also been a joy to work with the CRA staff in Washington, DC. They work tirelessly for our community, often with inadequate public acknowledgment of the importance of their contributions. On behalf of the entire computing research community, to them and to you, I want to say publicly and clearly – thank you!

In addition to being a member of the CRA Board, it has been my privilege to serve as CRA Chair for the past four years, and it is time for the inevitable and always beneficial changing of the guard. I am delighted that Peter Lee has been elected as my successor. It has been my pleasure to work with Peter in a variety of roles over the past several years. In each case, I have seen him bring new ideas, passion and enthusiasm, and I know CRA will be in great hands under his leadership.

Although my term is ending, rest assured that I will continue to be an active partner and participant in computing research policy and strategy, working with CRA and other organizations to advance the cause of computing. Remember, it's the love, the passion and the wonder that make computing, indeed any calling, worthwhile and fulfilling.

Stimulus Thoughts Redux

You might want to check out the Microsoft on the Issues blog for some recent Microsoft perspective on the economic stimulus package. It links workforce development, Steve Ballmer's recent speech, and my comments on the importance of basic research investment. Steve also sent a letter to members of Congress recommending passage of the stimulus bill.

The CRA Computing Research Policy Blog summarizes the results of the conference committee reconciliation, including funding for basic research.

Watch this space for further developments.

A Few Thoughts on the Stimulus Package

The political maneuvering and theater are well underway as the U.S. Congress debates the merits of various proposals to stimulate the economy. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the Nelson/Collins (Senators Ben Nelson and Susan Collins) adjustments to S. 336 will likely come to the floor of the U.S. Senate for a vote in a few days. If the modified bill is approved by the Senate, we will await the negotiations that follow in conference.

Support for scientific research is a small fraction of the stimulus plan, and the House and Senate plans differ in some marked ways. ASTRA has a handy comparison of the two proposals with respect to research investment.

If you haven't seen legislative sausage made before, it is important to understand the process. After each legislative branch passes its version of a bill, a conference committee reconciles the differences, and the compromise must then be approved (again) by both branches. It is a competitive and often messy rugby scrum. Hence, we do not yet know what may emerge in support of scientific research and evelopment.

Steve Ballmer on Science

Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, recently spoke to the U.S. House Democratic Caucus Retreat. Although you can read the complete speech, I would like to highlight a few excerpts that emphasize Microsoft's strong support for innovation and the importance of continued investment in basic research. In his speech, Steve noted

… America really has to return to growth that's built on innovation and productivity, rather than leverage and private debt.  That must happen.

He went on to say,

We need to pursue breakthroughs over the coming years in green technology, alternative energy, bioengineering, parallel computing, quantum computing.  Without greater government investment in the basic research, there is a danger that important advances will happen in other countries.  This is truly I think not only an issue of competitiveness, but also in a sense of national security.  Companies like ours and others can do our fair share in terms of funding of basic research, but government needs to take the lead.

I could not agree more wholeheartedly.

Microsoft Policy Blog

On the subject of Microsoft and policy, the company recently launched a policy blog (Microsoft on the Issues), including support for research. A few weeks ago, I penned an entry for the Microsoft policy blog on the federal stimulus plan and scientific innovation. In addition to noting the critical importance of innovation to fuel the economy, I observed that we should treat the current crisis and any new research funds as an opportunity to rethink the way we approach university research and public/private partnerships:

Beyond critically needed funding, the bill gives government, academia and industry a chance to rethink research partnerships and policies in ways that will harness the benefits of scientific innovation for the good of the entire nation.   …

We now have the opportunity to further streamline our nation's research infrastructure, particularly in U.S. research universities.  …

By rethinking public-private sector partnerships, and refining processes for acquiring and deploying information technology, we can increase research efficiency and catalyze new discoveries while reducing costs for both universities and the federal government.

The potential influx of research funds from the stimulus package creates a great opportunity for research innovation. However, these are perilous times, and we should not (by default) assume that "business as usual" is the best approach to accelerating research. It may indeed be the best approach, but we should face the issues squarely and thoughtfully.

What is the best way to apply information technology to science and engineering research? How can we best advance computing research itself? How can we retain our research strengths while also addressing the rising cost of higher education? What can we learn from new and effective approaches elsewhere? How can we continue to compete effectively and efficiently? As Spiderman says, "With great power, comes great responsibility."

As always, I welcome your thoughts and ideas.