The Department of Energy (DOE) has unique and extensive capabilities that could provide major contributions to the establishment of a National Information Infrastructure. Some of the Nation's premier high performance computing systems, applications, and networking capabilities have been developed, perfected, and routinely utilized by DOE scientists and engineers in pursuit of the department's missions. Many departmental facilities are routinely accessed and used for gathering information on energy production and use, for performing research and education programs and projects, and for collaborating with industry and academia in manufacturing and other technologies.
The proposed DOE IITA program combines research and development of information infrastructure technologies with mission related applications testbeds, which will be scalable nationally, innovative, information driven, relevant to industrial competitiveness, and performed in conjunction with U.S. industry. This program has three objectives: (1) to improve industry access to the DOE scientists and engineers to improve the flow of technology from the department's national laboratories and production facilities into the private sector; (2) to assist the department in maintaining its core competencies, especially its traditionally strong information technology expertise, in the DOE national laboratories; and 3) to increase the internal effectiveness of departmental activities.
DOE is in the forefront in the development and use of information technologies, such as high performance computing, high speed networking, data storage and databases, and other information services and system integration technology. It has pioneered the use of computing and networking tools to enable distributed and/or remote collaboration. Its diverse missions to conduct forefront research and development in many energy related fields and to design and manufacture nuclear weapons have mandated that the department stay at the leading edge in these information infrastructure technologies. This strength makes the department's information activities relevant to that of many U.S. industrial sectors.
The benefits to DOE from this program are threefold. First, it will allow a more cost- effective approach to carrying out the missions of the department during a period of constrained budgets. Second, by providing industry an open connection to this infrastructure, it will facilitate collaborations between industrial scientists and engineers and their counterparts in DOE laboratories and production facilities. Third, it will provide testbeds and demonstrations of information infrastructure technology and applications that are relevant to the National Information Infrastructure.
In summary, the DOE's weapons mission and its energy research mission have required that it develop enormous strengths in these technological areas over the last four decades. To accommodate future environmental concerns, these technologies become even more important for future success. It will now be the department's challenge to apply these strengths to the new national priorities.