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PITAC - Report to the President
Conclusion |
 
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Conclusion
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Conclusion In both the public and private sectors today, U. S. investments in technology R&D have slowed to a relative trickle. American businesses, in an ever-shrinking and more highly competitive world, have devoted less and less of their precious resources to long-term R&D, directing their efforts instead to reducing costs and getting new products into the pipeline today at the expense of the future. The Federal government has mirrored this trend because of dramatically increasing pressures on the research and development budgets, with only modest increases in funding levels. Funding agency managers have responded by making the natural and correct decision to favor the short-term needs of their missions over the need for long-term research in information technology. The U.S. Government's lead in research in high end computing and computation -- so crucial to keeping our military edge in the competitive era of the Cold War -- seems to have come down along with the Berlin Wall. As a result, the once robust technological edge the U.S. has enjoyed over the rest of the world is actually built on an increasingly fragile technological substructure. If the trend away from long-term research continues, the flow of bold new ideas that has fueled the information economy in this decade is likely to slow to a trickle by 2010. To keep its competitive edge, the United States must rededicate itself to cutting edge high-tech research and development -- or risk being overcome by nations with a clearer plan and a stronger view of the future. This is a risk the Nation cannot afford to take. The initiatives proposed in this report would represent a major step toward restoring long-term Federal research in information technology to levels that will ensure continued prosperity and new technological solutions to national problems in the next millennium. The time to act is now and the Federal government has a unique role to play in supporting research in this critical area. The Brooks/Sutherland report stated this well: Very few companies are able to invest for a payoff that is 10 years away. Moreover, many advances are broad in their applicability and complex enough to take several engineering iterations to get right, and so the key insights become 'public' and a single company cannot recoup the research investment. Public investment in research that creates a reservoir of new ideas and trained people is repaid many times over by jobs and taxes in the information industry, more innovation and productivity in other industries, and improvements in the daily lives of citizens. This investment is essential to maintain U.S. competitiveness.13This committee strongly recommends that the Federal government embark upon the kind of leading-edge, visionary research necessary to continue the revolution that has transformed the lives of our citizens in ways not thought possible just thirty years ago. The recommendations of this committee also stress the needs to: 1) to upgrade the knowledge base and skills of our workforce, so that our citizens will be prepared to face a new century fully prepared for the technological challenges that are yet to come; and 2) to give all American the opportunity to participate in the information age, so that our citizens will be able to fulfill its promise. These steps, if taken now, will bring handsome returns to the Nation over the coming decades. |
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Endnotes |
Endnotes
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