In the 1980s, a number of reports from different scientific disciplines noted a lack of computing resources to university researchers. An inter-agency study entitled “Report of the Panel on Large Scale Computing in Science and Engineering” chaired by Peter Lax (1982) identified four needs: 1. Increased access to computing cycles; 2. Increased research in software and algorithms; 3. Training of personnel; and 4. Research and development in the design of hardware systems. The response of the National Science Foundation to the Lax Report was the formation of Supercomputing Centers in 1985. The program morphed into the Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure Centers in 1997. This talk will discuss: 1) the early years and the transformation of the program in early 2000; 2) the merits of a shared resource versus a dedicated computer for a research group; and 3) the struggle between computer science and computational science research communities. And although provision of computing cycles was an important aspect of the program, education and training, and software and algorithm development are also important outcomes of the effort.

Providing supercomputing capability to the scientific community: The early years

251st National Meeting (2016)

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