House approves supercomputing bill
Bill requires multiple agencies to shift grants toward "basic research and education" in high-performance computing.
Declan McCullagh Former Senior Writer
Declan McCullagh is the chief political correspondent for CNET. You can e-mail him or follow him on Twitter as declanm. Declan previously was a reporter for Time and the Washington bureau chief for Wired and wrote the Taking Liberties section and Other People's Money column for CBS News' Web site.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to expand a federal program created in 1991 in hopes of bolstering supercomputing and speedier networks. The bill requires multiple federal agencies to shift grants toward "basic research and education in all aspects of high-performance computing and networking" and requires the executive branch to select "grand challenges" that should be addressed by the government.
Affected agencies include NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The bill, approved by a voice vote, is called the High-Performance Computing Revitalization Act.