University of Minnesota

Our Programs

Alliance for Transformational Computing

"To out-compete is to out-compute"

The Alliance for Transformational Computing (ATC) seeks to enable and expand the ethical and secure use of current computational capabilities, while continuing to advocate for investment in the leading edge of computing in concert with our allies globally.

Policy Priorities of the ATC

Enabling and expanding the ethical and secure use of current computational capabilities: The ATC proposes to democratize the use of existing advanced computing tools and technologies developed for National missions such as the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) to further leverage these capabilities to accelerate and expand U.S. innovation geographically and demographically. Previous Council efforts demonstrated the economic development potential of advanced computing clusters across the country. As the tools and technologies for dual-use become more pervasive, the need for focus on public private partnerships together with ethical and security considerations needs to be taken into greater account to foster a vibrant ecosystem.

Advocacy for transformational computing in concert with global allies: The ATC will advocate at the technological frontiers to maintain U.S. leadership in the next generation of transformation computing and its applications. While the United States remains the world leader in supercomputing with distinctive focus on advanced scientific computing, China has made significant progress on developing a strategic capability—including national supercomputing centers—to drive economic growth and industry transformation. Further, U.S. leadership in transformation computing is critical to addressing the following:

Advanced computing as a national security and economic imperative:

With the line between economic and national security research increasingly blurry, framing investments in computing power and capability as key to U.S. national security may be a persuasive message—and one that needs to be made more clearly.

Advanced computing as an enabler to AI, cyber, biotech, healthcare, agriculture, cosmology, quantum, fusion, climate, and hyperconnectivity:

Transformational computing is central to advancing emerging technologies under development and scaling such as quantum computing, AI/ML, blockchain, non-Von Neumann computing architectures, cloud and edge computing, and cyber security. Additional applications include the food-water-energy nexus, climate, health, and complex production networks and supply chains.

Redesigning transformational computing that are Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) efficient to enable a plethora of dual-use applications:

These three criteria are key aspects for the adoption and deployment of transformational computing capabilities at scale and potentially reduced cost to enable multi-industry fixed, relocatable and highly mobile applications. The “power” issue is both a technical challenge and climate imperative for supercomputing resources and is a relatively new phenomenon. The ATC will promote transformational computing to deliver more computational answers within a lower SWaP envelope.

Advocacy for fostering and retaining of a skilled and diverse STEM workforce:

The foundation of US leadership in the development, deployment, sustainment and secure utilization of the transformational computing ecosystem is a STEM educated and trained workforce the ATC will advocate for and provide recommendations for affordable and accessible STEM education and training for high schools, universities and colleges including HBCUs and Community Colleges that are critical to broaden the pool of potential STEM workforce.

Support for the role of data as the ‘energy’ that will feed transformational computation:

Data is the fuel for AI and data analytics across fields like health care, energy, education, and design. It is the feedstock chewed up by large language model training computations so that those generative AI capabilities can fundamentally change how we work, how we do research, and how we educate our human capital. The ATC will advocate for and provide recommendations on how to make available the nation’s public data to all who might benefit from it, while protecting privacy and preventing bias; how to collaborate with allies and partners around the globe to enable and protect these valuable resources; and how to make private sector data available for the public good in ways that protect the investments and intellectual property of those who generate and curate the data.

For more information on the ATC and how to become a supporting member of its agenda in Washington D.C., please contact Bill Bates at [email protected]

Leadership

Richard Arthur

GE Research

Tommy Gardner

HP – Federal

J. Michael McQuade

Carnegie Mellon University

Rob Neely

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lizy Paul

Lockheed Martin Corporation

High Performance Computing Industry Success Stories

While priorities have evolved with technology, the revolution of High Performance Computing was essential in driving innovation forward. The Council conducted a number of case studies and reports that showcase the competitive benefits achieved from modeling and simulation with HPC. The studies and reports discuss problems organizations faced and the solutions they reached using their own HPC resources or through partnerships with government-funded facilities and programs across the country. In each instance, these organizations advanced their R&D, accelerated innovation, created important new knowledge and shortened time-to-market for new products—all essential to business success in the face of global competition. Each organization also indicated significant cost savings and revenue enhancement. These advancements are fundamental building blocks on which new technology is created today.

Check out the linked historical documents above and video below to discover why #HPCMatters!

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