25 January 1999
Source:
http://www.usia.gov/current/news/latest/99012501.glt.html?/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml
USIS Washington
File
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25 January 1999
(Vice President Gore announces technology program) (1020) Washington -- The Clinton Administration is proposing expanding the government's program of information technology research with an additional $366 million dollars in funding in the U.S. budget for 2000. Vice President Al Gore made the announcement, calling the new program IT2, or Information Technology for the 21st century. He said the program is designed to support long-term information technology research, advanced computing for use in science and engineering, and research on the economic and social implications of the Information Revolution. Gore, considered the administration's leader in high technology issues, said the initiatives will help strengthen America's position as a leader in the "IT" industry, a significant growth sector in the overall economy. The vice president also said expanded investment in information technologies can lead to quality of life improvements in education, health care and in the lives of the disabled. Gore also called information technology the basis for new advances in science that could lead to a better understanding of global climate, improved energy systems and advances in the scientific study of matter. The initiative announced by Gore January 25 comes in response to recommendations made by the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, a private sector advisory committee requested by Congress. That panel has found the government investments in information technologies are too low, given their importance to the nation overall. Following is the text of the White House press release: (begin text) THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Vice President January 24, 1999 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: A BOLD INVESTMENT IN AMERICA'S FUTURE As part of their FY2000 budget, President Clinton and Vice President Gore are proposing a $366 million, 28 percent increase in the government's investment in information technology research. This initiative, known as IT2 (Information Technology for the Twenty-First Century), will support three kinds of activities: -- Long-term information technology research that will lead to fundamental advances in computing and communications, in the same way that government investment beginning in the 1960's led to today's Internet; -- Advanced computing for science, engineering and the nation that will lead to breakthroughs such as reducing the time required to develop life-saving drugs; designing cleaner, more efficient engines; and more accurately predicting tornadoes; and -- Research on the economic and social implications of the Information Revolution, and efforts to help train additional IT workers at our universities. The potential benefits of IT2 are compelling: -- The results of past government research (e.g. the Internet, the first graphical Web browser, advanced microprocessors) have helped strengthen American leadership in the IT industry, which now accounts for one-third of US economic growth and employs 7.4 million Americans at wages that are more than 60 percent higher than the private sector average. All sectors of the US economy are using IT to compete and win in global markets, and business-to-business electronic commerce in the US alone is projected to grow to $1.3 trillion by 2003. -- Information technology is changing the way we live, work, learn, and communicate with each other. Advances in IT can improve the way we educate our children, allow people with disabilities to lead more independent lives, and improve the quality of health care for rural Americans through telemedicine. US leadership in IT is also essential for our national security. -- Information technology will also lead to a "golden age" of science and engineering. Advances in supercomputers, simulation and networks are creating a new window into the natural world. -- making IT as valuable as theory and experimentation as a tool for scientific discovery. With computers can make trillions of calculations in a second, scientists and engineers will be able to better predict the impact of climate change, design more efficient and cleaner energy systems, and gain new insights into the fundamental nature of matter. The initiative builds on previous and current programs in computing and communications, including the High-Performance Computing and Communications program (authorized by legislation introduced by then-Senator Gore), and the Next Generation Internet, authorized by the Congress in 1998. It responds to recommendations made by a private sector advisory committee requested by the Congress (the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee), which concluded that the government was underinvesting in long-term IT research relative to its importance to the Nation. This committee, which is comprised of leaders from industry and academia, concluded that the private sector was unlikely to invest in the long-term, fundamental IT research needed to sustain the Information Revolution. The initiative also reflects a strong belief in the research community about the potential of IT to accelerate the pace of discovery in all science and engineering disciplines. The agencies that will be involved in IT2 include the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense (including DARPA), the Department of Energy, NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Roughly 60 percent of the funding will go to support university-based research, which will also help meet the growing demand for workers with advanced IT skills. Some of the potential breakthroughs that may be possible as a result of IT2 include: -- Computers that can speak, listen and understand human language, are much easier to use, and accurately translate between languages in real-time; -- "Intelligent agents" that can roam the Internet on our behalf, retrieving and summarizing the information we are looking for in an vast ocean of data; -- A wide range of scientific and technological discoveries made possible by simulations running on supercomputers, accessible to researchers all over the country; -- Networks that can grow to connect not only tens of millions of computers, but hundreds of billions of devices; -- Computers that are thousands of times faster than today's supercomputers, or are based on fundamentally different technology, such as biological or quantum computing; and -- New ways of developing complex software that is more reliable, easier to maintain, and more dependable for running the phone system, the electric power grid, financial markets, and other core elements of our infrastructure. (end text)