Binkley believes the initiative can hit the exascale target in roughly a decade, but that depends on funding and overcoming some technical challenges.
And the Obama administration is doubling down. “This national response will require a cohesive, strategic effort within the Federal Government and a close collaboration between the public and private sectors,” according to Obama’s executive order, which was signed on Wednesday.
The initiative came out of a two year inter-agency working group focused on figuring out how high powered computing could help national security, economic competitiveness and scientific achievement, Binkley said.
The Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation will lead the initiative — designing systems that could be used by even more parts of government including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
An exascale computer would allow for the government to run detailed models of some of the world’s most difficult problems, simulating solutions in ways that wouldn’t be possible without massive amounts of processing power. One key area for this is climate change and alternative energy sources, said Binkley. Such a system would also be valuable for dealing with massive scientific data sets, he said.
But while America is the land of tech giants, such as Google and IBM, China is currently leading the supercomputing arms race.