U.S. Moves to Bolster Supercomputer Stance
The U.S. government is gearing up to prevent Japan from dominating yet another segment of the high-technology industry, the small but strategic field of supercomputers.
Supercomputers are used for the most complex computing jobs such as determining air flow over an airplane wing, designing new weapons systems, cracking military codes or mapping the human body’s genes.
Priced at $20 million apiece, the machines’ processing speed is so great it is measured in billions of computing operations per second.
Government officials are talking of increased funding, congressional hearings, interagency studies and a possible industry consortium to prevent major U.S. research and development work from depending on foreign models.
But scientists who do that research are less concerned about Japanese dominance of the field than by the possibility that the United States may keep them from buying the best machines available.
“The real economic impact of supercomputers is not on the industry that makes them, it’s the industries that use them--aerospace, automobiles, oil,” said Sydney Karin, director of the San Diego Supercomputing Center. “We must be careful about any efforts to restrict the optimal supercomputers for these users.”
Federal officials are more circumspect. High-performance computing is obviously critical to science and engineering, which must not depend on outmoded technology, said William Wulf, assistant director of computing and information sciences for the National Science Foundation.
But Wulf added: “We must be careful to balance the need for cost-effective computing and having a vigorous indigenous supercomputer industry.”
The nation’s supercomputer makers have attracted attention after two disturbing announcements for the U.S. industry this month: NEC Corp. of Japan now claims to have the world’s fastest computer, while Control Data Corp. said it would shut down its supercomputer business, leaving only Cray Research Inc. in the domestic field.
NEC’s news had been expected for some time, but Control Data’s pullout--part of a $490-million restructuring to revive sluggish earnings--surprised government and industry alike.
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee was “shocked” by Control Data’s decision to close ETA Systems Inc., said Executive Director Harold Hansen.
“ETA assured us just a month ago that this wouldn’t happen,” said Hansen, who has called for congressional hearings to solve what he called a serious threat to the economy’s long-term health.
The supercomputer market is miniscule, compared to Japanese strongholds such as memory chips, television sets or video cassette recorders. Only 410 supercomputers are installed worldwide, and sales were about $1.8 billion last year.
But industry experts view supercomputers as one of high technology’s most critical segments, due to their key role in the most advanced research and development.
Minneapolis-based Cray, whose founder Seymour Cray invented the first supercomputer, is the world’s largest manufacturer, while the Japanese--with NEC, Fujitsu Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd.--have captured only 5% of the market outside Japan in their five years in the industry.
But experts say Japanese vendors have grabbed 29% of the global market by locking up their home country--a source of trade friction between Tokyo and Washington.
Japan’s Ministry of Trade and Industry has poured money into supercomputing since 1983, but the progress of U.S. companies has slowed.
The nation’s price/performance curve for supercomputing speed has slowed tremendously since 1984, found a recent survey sponsored by the National Research Council.
“This country is spending lots of money buying supercomputers but they are not supporting supercomputing research and development,” said David Kuck, director of the University of Illinois’s supercomputer center.
