[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
APPLICATIONS FOR INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-4
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland SCOTT PETERS, California
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois DEREK KILMER, Washington
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana AMI BERA, California
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
BILL POSEY, Florida MARC VEASEY, Texas
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming JULIA BROWNLEY, California
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona MARK TAKANO, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky VACANCY
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
------
Subcommittee on Research
HON. LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana, Chair
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
MO BROOKS, Alabama ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Larry Bucshon, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Research, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 5
Written Statement............................................ 5
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Research, Committee on Science, Space,
and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Witnesses:
Dr. Kelly Gaither, Director, Visualization Lab, Texas Advanced
Computing Center, University of Texas, Austin
Oral Statement............................................... 10
Written Statement............................................ 13
Dr. Kathryn McKinley, Principal Researcher, Microsoft
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 22
Dr. Ed Lazowska, Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science
and Engineering, University of Washington
Oral Statement............................................... 34
Written Statement............................................ 36
Discussion....................................................... 47
APPLICATIONS FOR INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:01 p.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Larry
Bucshon [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. The Subcommittee on Research will come to
order. Good afternoon. Welcome to today's hearing entitled
``Applications for Information Technology Research &
Development.'' In front of you are packets containing the
written testimony, biographies, and truth-in-testimony
disclosures for today's witness panel. I recognize myself now
for five minutes for an opening statement. First, I want to
welcome everyone today. This is my first hearing as the
Chairman of the Research Subcommittee and I look forward to
working with the Ranking Member, Mr. Lipinski, on this and many
other issues in the 113th Congress.
The topic of this afternoon's hearing, ``Applications for
Information Research & Development,'' is important to our
national security, global competitiveness, and technological
innovation. This hearing will provide us with examples of
practical applications and the benefits of federal investment
in networking and information technology, or NITRD research.
The Networking and Information Technology Research and
Development Program, or NITRD, was originally authorized in
1991 in the High Performance and Computing Act. It coordinates
the networking and information R&D efforts of 15 federal
agencies, including DHS, NASA, NIH, EPA, and the Department of
Energy. The program is the main R&D investment portfolio of
member agencies in networking, computing, software,
cybersecurity, and related informational technologies totaling
over $3.7 billion in fiscal year 2013. R&D in NIT provides a
greater understanding of how to protect essential systems and
networks that support fundamental sections of our economy, from
emergency communications and power grids to air traffic control
networks and national defense systems.
NITRD works to prevent or minimize disruptions to critical
information infrastructure to protect public and private
services, to detect and respond to threats while mitigating the
severity of and assisting in the recovery from those threats in
an effort to support a more stable and secure Nation.
As technology rapidly advances, the need for NIT research
and development continues to evolve. NITRD works to prevent
duplicative and overlapping R&D efforts, thereby enabling more
efficient use of brain power and resources while maintaining--
while remaining good stewards of the taxpayers' money.
Today, our witnesses will share their professional
perspectives on how NITRD applies to the quality of Americans'
everyday lives. I would like to now recognize the Ranking
Member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, for an
opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bucshon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Larry Bucshon
First, I want to welcome everyone today. This is my first hearing
as Chairman of the Research Subcommittee and I look forward to working
with the Ranking Member, Mr. Lipinski, on this and many other issues in
the 113th Congress.
The topic of this afternoon's hearing, Applications for Information
Research & Development, is important to our national security, global
competitiveness and technological innovation. This hearing will provide
us with examples of practical applications and the benefits of Federal
investment in networking and information technology R&D.
The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development
program, or NITRD, was originally authorized in 1991 in the High
Performance and Computing Act. It coordinates the networking and
information R&D efforts of 15 Federal member agencies, including DHS,
NASA, NIH, EPA and the Department of Energy. The program is the main
R&D investment portfolio of member agencies in networking, computing,
software, cyber security and related information technologies totaling
over $3.7 billion in FY2013.
R&D in NIT provides a greater understanding of how to protect
essential systems and networks that support fundamental sectors of our
economy, from emergency communications and power grids to air-traffic
control networks and national defense systems. NIT R&D works to prevent
or minimize disruptions to critical information infrastructure, to
protect public and private services, to detect and respond to threats
while mitigating the severity of and assisting in the recovery from
those threats, in an effort to support a more stable and secure nation.
As technology rapidly advances, the need for NIT research and
development continues to evolve. NITRD works to prevent duplicative and
overlapping R&D efforts, thereby enabling more efficient use of
brainpower and resources, while remaining good stewards of taxpayer's
money.
Today our witnesses will share their professional perspectives on
how NITRD applies to the quality of American's everyday lives.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
for holding this hearing and also congratulate you on being
named the Chair of this Subcommittee. I have been either Chair
or Ranking Member of this Subcommittee now for three
Congresses. I love this Committee and this Subcommittee. I look
forward to working with you. I had a very good relationship
with the Chair last Congress, and I think we could work very
well together and get some good things done in these next two
years. I am looking forward to that.
The House has passed bipartisan legislation reauthorizing
the NITRD program in the past two Congresses. So I believe we
can get something done again in this Congress. Hopefully, the
third time is the charm with the Senate.
The most problematic issue threatening the NITRD program
right now are the cuts and uncertainty in top-line R&D budgets.
While authorizing NITRD wouldn't solve these problems, it would
signal the government's continuing interest in investing in
these critical research areas in a partnering with industry to
help set R&D and workforce training priorities that prepare our
nation for the future.
The NITRD program evolved from a federal program
established under the High Performance Computing Act of 1991,
as the Chairman said. That Act provided the funding that led to
the development of Mosaic in 1993, the World Wide Web browser
that made the Internet user friendly and led to its explosion
in the 1990s. I am proud to note that Mosaic was created by a
team of programmers at the federally funded National Center for
Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois.
Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, who was a leader of the
Illinois team before launching his company, was quoted as
saying ``if it had been left to private industry, it wouldn't
have happened, at least not until years later.''
Without question, the 1991 Act sets the stage for a
coordinated federal R&D investment strategy that has
underpinned U.S. leadership in networking and information
technology over the past 2 decades. In Illinois, that
leadership in R&D is helping to complete work on a Blue Waters
project, a petascale supercomputer that will maintain the
University of Illinois' position at the forefront of high
performance computing research.
But as with many other areas of R&D, we can no longer take
for granted U.S. leadership in NIT. As noted by Dr. McKinley
and his testimony, China, Japan--let me go back and--I think I
may have said Mr.--make sure I said Dr. McKinley in her
testimony--China, Japan, Germany, and several other countries
are increasing their investments in NIT R&D and in their
capacity to convert R&D into new commercial technologies.
As we heard from witnesses at a hearing on U.S.
competitiveness last week, R&D no longer occurs in simple
linear progression from basic research to commercial product.
There may be a clear role for the government in basic research,
including use-inspired basic research; and a clear role for
industry in the last 1 to three years of product development
work. But there are multiple gaps between those efforts. And
our economy benefits exponentially when our R&D portfolio
includes partnerships that facilitate collaboration among
universities, national labs, and industry. This applies as much
to NIT as to any other area of R&D. In fact, historically, some
of the most economically important public-private partnerships
have been in the NIT sector.
We must also join forces in addressing NIT education and
workforce challenges. While the Federal Government has a role
here, I would like to hear our witnesses' input on that. This
is also a problem that demands the attention of state and local
government, as well as the private sector. As I have noted
several times in the past, I am concerned about trends in
outsourcing of even high skills jobs. At the same time however,
we hear anecdotally of thousands of U.S. NIT jobs that go
unfulfilled due to a lack of qualified applicants. There is no
doubt we need to do a better job overall in preparing our
students for jobs of today and in the future, and in
particular, we need to graduate more computer science majors.
I hope the Chairman will allow me to go a little over time
after I praised him at the beginning. Now, I don't have too
much longer.
Finally, because PCAST discusses this topic in their latest
review of NITRD, I want to bring up educational technology and
the possible topic of discussion for this hearing. By that I
mean R&D on technology to improve learning outcomes and
increase access to high-quality education, including STEM
education. One of the hottest topics today in higher education
is Massively Open Online Courses, or MOOCs. Many of the MOOC
courses are in computer science and engineering. I wonder how
this is changing the NIT education landscape, as well as what
the implications and opportunities are for education research.
This is an also expansive enough topic on its own and maybe the
Subcommittee would consider holding a separate hearing to look
more carefully at these issues.
With that, I want to thank all the witnesses for being here
today, in particular Dr. Lazowska, who is becoming an old hand
at this by now. I look forward to all your testimony and yield
back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ranking Minority Member Daniel Lipinski
Thank you Chairman Bucshon for holding this hearing. And
congratulations on being selected to Chair this Subcommittee.
The House has passed bipartisan legislation reauthorizing the NITRD
program in the past two Congresses, so I believe that we can get
something done again this Congress. Hopefully the third time is the
charm for the Senate.
The most problematic issues threatening the NITRD program right now
are the cuts and uncertainty in top-line R&D budgets. While
reauthorizing NITRD wouldn't solve these problems, it would signal the
government's continuing interest in investing in these critical
research areas, and in partnering with industry to help set R&D and
workforce training priorities that prepare our nation for the future.
The NITRD program evolved from a federal program established under
the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. That Act provided the
funding that led to the development of Mosaic in 1993, the World Wide
Web browser that made the Internet user-friendly and led to its
explosion in the 1990s. I am proud to note that Mosaic was created by a
team of programmers at the federally funded National Center for
Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Netscape
founder Marc Andreeson, who was a leader of the Illinois team before
launching his company, was quoted as saying, ``If it had been left to
private industry, it wouldn't have happened, at least, not until years
later.'' Without question the 1991 Act set the stage for a coordinated
federal R&D investment strategy that has underpinned U.S. leadership in
networking and information technology over the past two decades. In
Illinois, that leadership in R&D is helping to complete work on the
Blue Waters project, a petascale supercomputer that will maintain the
University of Illinois's position at the forefront of high performance
computing research.
But as with many other areas of R&D, we can no longer take for
granted U.S. leadership in NIT. As noted by Dr. McKinley in her
testimony, China, Japan, Germany, and several other countries are
increasing their investments in NIT R&D, and in their capacity to
convert R&D into new commercial technologies. As we heard from
witnesses at a hearing on US Competitiveness last week, R&D no longer
occurs in a simple linear progression from basic research to commercial
product. There may be a clear role for the government in basic
research, including use-inspired basic research, and a clear role for
industry in the last 1-3 years of product development work. But there
are multiple gaps between those efforts, and our economy benefits
exponentially when our R&D portfolio includes partnerships that
facilitate collaboration among universities, national labs, and
industry. This applies as much to NIT as to any other area of R&D. In
fact, historically, some of the most economically important public-
private partnerships have been in the NIT sector.
We must also join forces in addressing NIT education and workforce
challenges. While the federal government has a role here--and I'd like
to hear our witnesses' input on that--this is a problem that also
demands the attention of state and local government as well as the
private sector. As I have noted several times in the past, I am
concerned about trends in outsourcing of even high-skills jobs. At the
same time, however, we hear anecdotally of thousands of U.S. NIT jobs
that go unfilled due to a lack of qualified applicants. \1\ There is no
doubt we need to do a better job overall in preparing our students for
jobs of today and the future, and in particular we need to graduate
more computer science majors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Dr. McKinley cites 3,400 unfilled research and engineering
positions at Microsoft alone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, because PCAST discusses this topic in their latest review
of NITRD, I want to bring up educational technology as a possible topic
of discussion for this hearing. By that I mean R&D on technologies to
improve learning outcomes and increase access to high-quality
education, including STEM education. One of the hottest topics today in
higher education is Massively Open Online Courses, or MOOCs. Many of
the MOOC courses are in computer science and engineering. I wonder how
this is changing the NIT education landscape, as well as what the
implications and opportunities are for education research. But this is
also an expansive enough topic on its own that maybe Chairman Bucshon
will consider holding a separate hearing to look more carefully at
these issues.
With that, I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here
today, and in particular Dr. Lazowska who is becoming an old hand at
this by now. I look forward to all of your testimony.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
At this time, I would like to introduce our witnesses. Our
first witness is Dr. Kelly Gaither. She is the Director of
Visualization and a Senior Research Scientist at the Texas
Advanced Computing Center. Additionally, she serves as the area
Co-Director for Visualization and the National Science
Foundation-funded XSEDE project. Dr. Gaither received her
doctorate degree in Computational Engineering from Mississippi
State University. Welcome.
Our next witness is Dr. Kathryn McKinley, who is a
Principal Researcher at Microsoft and an Endowed Professor of
Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr.
McKinley has a broad area of research interests, and her
research group has produced numerous tools, algorithms, and
methodologies are used in a variety of industrial settings. Dr.
McKinley earned her B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. from Rice University.
Welcome.
Our final witness today is Dr. Ed Lazowska. Mr. Lazowska
holds the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and
Engineering at the University of Washington. He also serves as
the Founding Director of the University of Washington eScience
Institute and the Chair of the Computing Community Consortium.
Dr. Lazowska has received national recognition for his research
and leadership activities. Dr. Lazowska earned his Ph.D. from
the University of Toronto. Welcome.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes each after which Members of the Committee will
have five minutes each to ask questions. I now recognize Dr.
Gaither to present her testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. KELLY GAITHER,
DIRECTOR, VISUALIZATION LAB,
TEXAS ADVANCED COMPUTING CENTER,
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN
Dr. Gaither. Thank you, Chairman Bucshon, Ranking Member
Lipinski, and Members of the Subcommittee for this opportunity.
I am here as the Director of Visualization and a Senior
Research Scientist at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.
At TACC, our mission is to enable discoveries that advance
science and society through the application of advanced
computing technologies. We support thousands of researchers and
partner with companies like Dell, Intel, Shell, Chevron, and BP
to push the state of the art. Science can only advance if we
continue to push the envelope.
Computational science or the application of computer
simulations to scientific applications is the third pillar of
21st century science. Significant progress has been made in the
last two decades because of federal investments in
interdisciplinary teamwork. As an interdisciplinary researcher,
I have been funded to work on projects like the visualization
and data analysis of massive scale turbulent flow simulations--
important because of its applications in aircraft and
automobile design, energy, storm damage, and galaxy formation.
I am also the principal investigator for the largest
visualization cluster in the world. With this project, we have
enabled more than 619 researchers conducting large-scale
computational science, and we have trained hundreds of people
at institutions across the Nation. I am also the director of a
visualization laboratory, home to one of the largest tile
displays in the world. We have had more than 18,000 people come
through those doors, many of which are K-12 students.
We are a country of innovators and this innovation must be
fostered with significant investment and patience. The NITRD
program gives us that funding for resources at a scale
prohibited for individual institutions. With respect to funding
opportunities in NITRD, let me first commend the efforts to
create national programs with increasing focus on data.
However, this should not be done to the exclusion of funding
research and development and modeling, simulation, and
visualization. It is imperative that we strive to build a
balanced portfolio of funding opportunities.
We can see the evidence of a shift in the Nation's high-end
computing strategy. The decrease in funding is not limited to
the resources but extends to many of the underlying scientific
applications and crucial software tools as well. This dip in
funding is at odds with the increased need for high-end
computing technologies and open science research.
How can we ensure a persistent pipeline to meet the
Nation's IT needs? I graduated from high school in one of the
poorest states in the Nation at a time when young women were
not encouraged to go to college. I have been supported by
federally-funded computational research dollars since I was 24
years old. I am the by-product of federal funding, and
persistent funding at that. Without this funding, I would not
have had the opportunities to participate in many of the
interdisciplinary research projects that focus on solving some
of society's most challenging issues. We need opportunities to
educate students in interdisciplinary research and provide
invaluable hands-on experience working with teams of
researchers. We are lacking a thriving focus on research and
development that is not driven by quarterly profit bottom line.
In closing, I would like to reiterate my appreciation for
the invitation to speak to you today about the impact that the
NITRD program has had in my research. To summarize, first, we
must make significant continued investments in the NITRD
program. As a researcher, I know that investments in research
will keep us at the forefront of innovation. We must not
shortchange our commitment and vision to continue the successes
of those that have come before us.
Second, we must maintain a balanced portfolio of NITRD
funding opportunities for researchers in computational science.
We must find a way to continue to increase investment not to
the exclusion of existing funding streams. It is a combination
of efforts that is most likely to be fruitful.
And last, we must provide exciting opportunities to entice
our students to stay in computational science. We must deal
head-on with the brain drain that our universities are
experiencing in undergraduate and postgraduate education. While
there is no magic bullet that will solve this problem, it seems
clear that a new approach is warranted. This new approach
requires an investment in both curriculum development and
student research to provide exciting opportunities for future
generations of scientists.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gaither follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you, Dr. Gaither.
I now recognize Dr. McKinley for five minutes to present
her testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. KATHRYN MCKINLEY,
PRINCIPAL RESEARCHER, MICROSOFT
Dr. McKinley. Chairman Bucshon, Ranking Member Lipinski,
and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting
Microsoft to testify and your attention to how IT innovation
helps the Nation create jobs and grow our economy. I am Kathryn
McKinley. My experiences with the National Science Foundation,
the National Academies, DOE, and DARPA, and as an Endowed
Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and my current
role as Principal Researcher at Microsoft inform my testimony.
First, I would like to point out that an interconnected IT
research ecosystem has made the United States the world's
leading economy with the best defense capabilities. The results
of IT research include new billion-dollar industries that
create jobs and make us safer, healthier, more efficient, and
delight us.
One example is the Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect. With Kinect,
your voice and your body are the game controller. Kinect
combines decades of research at Microsoft and elsewhere on
artificial intelligence, graphics, motion detection, and voice
recognition. New technologies inspire more innovation, and now,
Kinect is advancing learning, health, and retail. Kinect exists
because Microsoft's business strategy is to make long-term
investments and bets. Twenty years of investment in Microsoft
Research has made Microsoft Research the largest and most
successful computing research organization in the world. Yet
Microsoft thrives as a part of a larger research ecosystem
partnering with government, industry, and academia.
Key IT research areas for our Nation and for NITRD include
big data, privacy, and building trustworthy systems. A
particularly important research challenge that I work on is
that your computer is no longer getting faster every year. In
the past, doubling of performance every two years drove new
computing capabilities and accelerated innovation in IT.
Unfortunately, current technology is up against some
fundamental limits, and no new technologies are ready to
overcome them.
The technical challenges are compounded by global
competition. Substantial investments in Asia and Europe have
increased their contributions to the research ecosystem and
their participation in the global IT economy. While the United
States still enjoys an advantage, the gap is narrowing.
Significant research investments in areas such as
semiconductors, materials, architecture, and programming
systems are needed. If the overall rate of innovation slows, it
will be easier for other countries to close the gap and the
United States will lose its economic and national security
advantages.
Let us talk about education. Technology is and will infuse
all aspects of life in the 21st century. People who understand
IT will flourish in the global knowledge economy. The U.S.
computing workforce demands are outpacing its supplies. Forty
thousand people earned a computing Bachelor's degree last year,
but that is not enough because we are projected to have 120,000
openings for jobs that require a computer science degree. The
United States, including federal agencies, must strengthen
computing education at all levels, including K through 12, to
fill these jobs.
A particular challenge in computing is the limited
participation of women, Hispanics, and African-Americans. My
community, through efforts such as the Computing Research
Association, where I am a Board Member and a Committee Co-
Chair, has programs that are proven to increase the success of
women and minorities by mentoring Master's and Ph.D. graduate
students and giving undergraduates research experiences. But we
need more success stories. The United States simply cannot
afford to fail to capitalize on the creativity of 70 percent of
its population if it wants to remain globally competitive. The
IT knowledge economy depends on the flow of the best people and
ideas between academia, government, and industry.
I would like to finish with a little of my own personal
story. I did not go to college intending to become a researcher
or even a computer scientist. I came from a family of lawyers.
I took a computer science course and then Professor Don Johnson
at Rice University hired me for a summer research project. That
experience opened my eyes to the excitement of solving problems
where no one knows the answers. And that could be my job. But
tight integration of research and education makes the U.S.
research universities the best in the world.
I thank you for this opportunity to testify and your
Committee's long-standing support for IT research and
innovation. I would be pleased to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. McKinley follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you, Dr. McKinley.
I now recognize Dr. Lazowska to present his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. ED LAZOWSKA,
BILL AND MELINDA GATES CHAIR
IN COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING,
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Dr. Lazowska. Well, I, too, would like to thank Chairman
Bucshon, Ranking Member Lipinski, and the Members of the
Subcommittee for the opportunity to speak today.
My name is Ed Lazowska. I am a longtime faculty member at
the University of Washington. I have been a member or Chair of
many federal IT Advisory Committees. Most recently, I was Co-
Chair of the Working Group of the President's Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology that conducted a review of
the overall NITRD program in 2010.
What that review found--and you have heard about this from
the other two witnesses--is that the research ecosystem
supported by the NITRD program has been the primary factor in
America's world leadership in information technology. And if we
are going to remain competitive in this increasingly
competitive world, there is honestly no field in which it is
more important to maintain our leadership than information
technology.
So what I want to do today is focus on one aspect of my
written testimony, and that is the unique and essential role of
the relatively modest federal investment in IT R&D. The
National Research Council over many years, going back to 1995,
a report I participated in, has constructed a series of
diagrams that attempt to explain how this works, how this
ecosystem fits together. I want to say for Mr. Lipinski, who
has seen previous versions of this diagram, that this one is
new and improved, just out a few months ago. And in fact, the
individual who produced this is Peter Lee, who is the Vice
President for Microsoft Research in the United States.
This diagram is a timeline that runs from bottom to top and
it tracks the growth of eight major sectors of the IT industry,
broadband and mobile, microprocessors, personal computing, and
so on. They are labeled near the top. There are three lines for
each sector. Let me just take a second and explain this. The
red line shows research performed in universities mostly with
NITRD funding. The blue line in the middle shows when industry
R&D organizations were working in the same sector largely with
private-sector funding. The dotted black line shows when the
first product was introduced. When that line becomes green, it
became a billion-dollar market sector. When the green line gets
thicker, it becomes a $10 billion market sector. The small
diagonal arrows you can barely see are the flow of specific key
people and ideas between academia and industry and between the
sectors. It looks like someone just tossed those on there, but
in fact, there is a spreadsheet that says what each one
corresponds to. And above the lines are some of the
multibillion-dollar companies that resulted in these sectors.
So the diagram shows many key aspects of this really
incredibly productive IT R&D ecosystem. And let me just note a
few of them. First, research can take a long time before it
pays off, in many of those examples, 15 years from critical
research advances to the first product introduction. Secondly,
research often pays off in unanticipated ways. We are not very
good at predicting where the biggest impact is going to be.
Third, advances in one sector often enable advances in other
sectors. It really is an interconnected network. Fourth, the
research ecosystem is fueled by the flow of people and ideas
back-and-forth between academia and industry. And finally,
every one of these multibillion-dollar sectors has a clear
relationship to federal research investment.
So it is important to realize--and you have heard it from
the other two witnesses--that federal investment does not
supplant private-sector investment; it complements it. Here is
why: the vast majority of industry R&D is development, the
engineering of the next release of the product. This is totally
appropriate. Developing products is hard. Also, research takes
many years to pay off in many cases. Even at Microsoft and IBM,
which invest far more than any other IT companies in work that
looks out more than one or two product cycles, this investment
constitutes only about five percent of total R&D. At most
companies it is 0 percent in IT.
Here is a great example--in addition to Kinect which you
heard about from Dr. McKinley. It is this cute little iPad.
Now, it is a product that maybe only Apple could have designed,
just like Kinect is a clever product maybe only Microsoft could
have designed, but every distinctive aspect of this device--the
multi-touch interface, the sensors, the processor--has its
origins in federally-sponsored research.
So IT R&D leads to exciting companies, but it does far
more. It drives the economy, as you heard, directly through the
growth of the IT industry, indirectly through productivity
gains in other sectors.
Looking to the future--and Chairman Bucshon did a wonderful
job of describing this in his introductory remarks--dramatic
advances are necessary in meeting all of our national and
global challenges; improved healthcare, advanced manufacturing,
increased national and homeland security, revolutionizing
transportation, personalized education--hopefully, we will talk
about MOOCs in a minute--putting the smarts in the smart grid,
driving advances in all fields.
Given the broad influence, it is not surprising that the
demand for IT workers is strong. Dr. McKinley spoke to that
clearly. What I would say is all STEM is important, but from a
workforce point of view, all STEM is not created equal.
So to summarize, computing research changes our world,
drives our prosperity, enables advances in all other fields,
and is essential to meeting our national and global challenges.
The government has played an essential role in fostering these
examples. The future is bright. There is opportunity and need.
There is also tremendous need for well-educated graduates. The
government's role in supporting fundamental research is
essential and doesn't supplant private sector investment.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lazowska follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you. And I would like to thank all
the witnesses for their testimony and being available for
questioning.
I want to remind Members that the Committee rules limit
questioning to five minutes, and as Chair I will open and
recognize myself for five minutes at this point.
I will some response from all of you on this one. In
previous NITRD hearings, we have heard that IT's role in
national security, national competitiveness, and national
priorities is far broader than high-performance computing
alone. As we continue to learn more about the recent National
Intelligence Estimate Report regarding China's use of cyber
espionage, can you expand on how the IT field has influenced or
continues to influence national security? And whomever wants to
go first. Dr. Lazowska?
Dr. Lazowska. I will give it a try.
I think what has happened in the past 20 years is that
high-performance computing is as important as it ever was and
of ever-increasing importance, but what has happened is a set
of other aspects of the field has risen to perhaps comparable
importance. All right? So this was called the High Performance
Computing Act of 1991 because that was clearly the dominant
aspect of the field in importance.
Now, where we stand in robotics, where we stand in mining
vast amounts of data for intelligence purposes, all sorts of
other aspects of the field are just as important to our
security and to our competitiveness. So, for example, big data
clearly matters in assessing threats. Artificial intelligence
clearly matters in understanding communiques from other nations
doing language translation, things like this. So in addition to
information technology being important in countering all sorts
of threats, it is a threat itself. All right?
So there has, as you noted, been lots of attention to cyber
warfare recently. This is an area where, honestly, we lag
behind. That is, the aggressors have an advantage over the
defenders and we have been defending for decades with what I
have to say are heroic Band-Aid efforts. And we need to really
rethink the design of our systems to make them more secure. And
that is a research challenge.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you.
Anyone else have----
Dr. McKinley. So I would just like to add to Ed's remarks
that 20 years ago, defense was driving IT. We had big
investments in technologies that were really directly
applicable to defense, but because of the rise in industry and
consumer products that use IT, we now have a huge influence on
the capabilities of defense, driven by capabilities of things
you also want to buy. And so, for example, a Smartphone is very
helpful to a soldier as well as helpful to you when you are
trying to get your kids to their hockey games. So that the
driving of what technologies you want to use in the field, as
well as the technologies that are useful for consumers have
come together. And this is where the narrowing of the gap is a
problem because you want to have better capabilities. And that
requires being ahead of the game and being ahead of industry as
well and ready with the new technologies.
Chairman Bucshon. Dr. Gaither?
Dr. Gaither. Yes, so I would like to just address it very
briefly. I would not look at this as an either/or problem. So I
think it really does--I guess it goes back to my point about
interdisciplinary work. I think you should look at it as a
combination of high-performance computing, as a combination of
the data mining. Clearly, that is going to play a very large
role. But I would look at it as a portfolio of tools to solve
this problem, not one versus the other.
Chairman Bucshon. Great. Thank you. I will now recognize
Mr. Lipinski for five minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I will let you continue on--since
you started talking about cybersecurity, I will jump to that
question. Obviously, it is a big issue becoming bigger, and I
think we are going to learn, unfortunately, maybe in a dramatic
fashion how critical it is to us right now.
I cosponsored a bill last Congress with Congressman McCaul
called the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act. We are going to be
introducing that again. Among other things, it would require a
federal strategy for assessing cyber threats and coordinate
cyber R&D to address these threats. Part of the 2013 PCAST
report on NITRD recommended greater coordination among agencies
on cybersecurity R&D. In what ways do you think--you touched on
this little bit--what ways do you think the Federal Government
could better coordinate research efforts in cybersecurity? Dr.
Lazowska?
Dr. Lazowska. One comment I would make is that all of these
studies have found that NITRD is one of the most successful
coordination efforts. So I think we have to state that at the
outset. In cybersecurity, there is a particular challenge
because of classification. And I think an important issue is
attempting to distill the essence of classified problems so
that a broader range of investigators can work on them. All
right?
So most universities don't do classified research, but many
of the best cybersecurity researchers are in universities. I
know that DARPA has worked on this. The National Science
Foundation, of course, supports a large number of research
programs in sort of the unclassified core of cybersecurity. But
honestly, it is an area that needs a better research workforce,
as well as a better practitioner workforce.
I would like to mention one additional reason why this is
so important, and that is every aspect of our Nation's critical
infrastructure is now controlled by computer systems. All
right? So this just ten years ago was much less so for, let us
say, the power grid, all right? These days, all of these are
complex, interconnected systems subject to attack from
information technology in ways that can actually damage hard-
to-replace physical infrastructure. So we truly do need more
communication and collaboration among the agencies.
The Senior Steering Group that NITRD has created in the
past couple of years since the 2010 report has gone a long way
towards addressing the coordination issues.
Mr. Lipinski. Any other comments? I will move on. Okay,
great. All of you are computer scientists. I actually have a
background as an engineer but also in--with the dark side got
my Ph.D. in political science. I am also a social scientist. In
your testimony, you all discussed the need for computer
scientists to collaborate with social scientists to address
many scientific and technological challenges. Can you elaborate
on the role of social and behavioral scientists do and should
play in NIT R&D? And are there sufficient federal mechanisms to
support multidisciplinary collaboration among computer
scientists, engineers, and social scientists?
Let me say that I know there is a lot of bad social science
research out there, but I think, unfortunately, it is all
getting lumped together and attempted to be thrown out. But can
you talk to the role that social and behavioral scientists can
play in NIT R&D? Dr. McKinley?
Dr. McKinley. Humans interact with computers, so if we
don't understand how humans want to interact with them, if we
don't understand the social sciences, if it is not a
collaboration, we can't make IT work for people because it is
about the people. And yes, there is bad research in every area
unfortunately, but there is mostly good research. And a great
example is health. If you want to make people--or if you want
to use your cell phone that you are carrying around to help you
be healthier, we might want to remind you to take a walk or eat
better, but we don't want you to--we need to understand how
those hints help you or maybe they discourage you and you get
mad at your phone and you stop doing it. So some of these basic
issues on how you use IT for health require both doctor
collaborations, user interface, and people who understand how
human beings make decisions.
Mr. Lipinski. Dr. Gaither?
Dr. Gaither. So to further that point, visualization is all
about really verifying visualizations. We can't really do that
quantifiably right now. So we do them with user studies because
visualization is about how people perceive the images that they
are seeing.
I also want to address the point about the
interdisciplinary research. So I do think that there is a
frightening shortage of funding going into interdisciplinary
research. And let me say, while it may be a little cliche, the
sum of putting people together from different backgrounds
really is greater than the individual parts. And I think the
magic happens when you put people together from very different
backgrounds working towards a common goal.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you very much. I am out of time. I
yield back.
Chairman Bucshon. I recognize Mr. Stockman for five
minutes.
Mr. Stockman. I have kind of a concern because I am hearing
an underlying theme about cybersecurity. And I guess I would go
through the three of you doctors who are professionals and tell
us, hey, how much--if we need more funding, how much more
funding do we need for cybersecurity to defend against it? And
two, are we doing enough work towards that? I was shocked--I
was at a Chevron gas station and actually the gasoline pumps
were shut down because of a cyber attack. And I don't think
people realize to what degree, how deeply we are dependent upon
computers and satellites. I guess I would go through and tell
us from our job--to do our job right, are you getting enough
funding? And how much is enough and what do we need to do?
Dr. Lazowska. I am not going to be able to answer your
question in specific terms I am afraid. There had been numerous
calls for greater investments in fundamental research in
cybersecurity. I think now, we are spending enormous amounts of
money in short-term defenses, which are holding the threats at
bay largely, although not entirely as you point out. We are not
spending enough laying the groundwork for systems that are
designed in a way that they will actually be resistant to
attack. So the problem is that you can't just bolt security on
to a complex hardware/software system at the last minute after
it has been designed in an insecure way. We have learned a huge
amount in the past ten years about how to build reliable and
secure systems. Microsoft has in fact been a leader in this.
The quality of Microsoft's code and its resistance to
penetrations has improved enormously in the past decade. But we
do need significantly greater investment in the fundamentals.
I was the co-chair of the late PITAC, President's
Information Technology Advisory Committee, under President
Bush. We wrote a report on cybersecurity that called for
significantly increased investment in the National Science
Foundation and other agencies, and we didn't get reappointed as
a reward for our efforts. It is a serious issue.
Mr. Stockman. I don't mean to interrupt but when you say
significant, is there a number that you targeted or suggested?
Dr. Lazowska. Unfortunately, the problem is that it is a
portfolio. You need an investment in the long-range work. You
need to continue the investment in blocking threats, and you
need to span----
Mr. Stockman. But I mean is there a price tag that we can--
I mean we have to----
Dr. Lazowska. We called eight years ago for an investment
of, I believe, another $90 million at the National Science
Foundation, which I view as a tiny amount of money relative to
the potential cost of insecurity. But you do have to realize
that the payoff from that investment would be some number of
years down the road.
Mr. Stockman. That is more than what they have stolen from
some banks through----
Dr. Lazowska. Less than they have stolen from some banks.
Mr. Stockman. Yes, that is what I meant. Yes, that is what
I am saying----
Dr. Lazowska. It is less than what they have stolen from
some gas stations, I am sure----
Mr. Stockman. Yes, exactly.
Dr. Lazowska. This--it is a very serious issue, sir.
Mr. Stockman. In fact, I think in 10 seconds we probably--
less than that, we have spent that.
Dr. McKinley, I have a question for you. You actually
worked--and I have got to hurry up because we are out of time--
but you worked with the private sector or you have. You also
had federal and state. Which in your opinion do you see the
most efficiency? If we had appropriated money, where would you
put that funding?
Dr. McKinley. So different research needs to be done at
different times and different places. So one of the reasons I
moved from academia to Microsoft Research is because many of
the problems that I work on, such as making your phone last
longer and runtime systems, which I won't tell you exactly what
that means, but that right now these areas are turning into
actionable products and things that people want to use. And so
right now is the right time for some of the groundwork that my
research laid to move into industry. And it is that flow of
people who come with their ideas and their expertise that makes
the whole system work. Like I loved academia. I might go back
someday, but this is the right place for me to be right now.
And that ecosystem is represented by my career and as a grad
student my first funding was National Science Foundation, a
Science and Technology Center, which was a big bet on parallel
computing, and that is technology we really need today, and I
am still an expert in that area.
Chairman Bucshon. Gentlemen yields back.
Ms. Esty, you are recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Esty. Thank you very much. You have all described how
important federal investments are in NITRD to this country. And
as you know, we face a rather challenging budgetary climate
right now. For Dr. McKinley, the questioned frequently arises,
you know, why can't more of this be done out of the private
sector? So if you can talk about what you think the
implications are if we continue to cut back on basic R&D, what
is the likelihood that Microsoft or other private companies
would fill in the gap of the research that now is being done on
basic R&D?
Dr. McKinley. So most companies aren't making even the
modest investment that Microsoft is making. A startup company
takes some ideas that are in a university and doesn't exist
until those ideas exist and then they become a billion-dollar
industry and a competitor of Microsoft's, like Google. So those
kinds of activities just won't happen in big established
companies, even ones that believe as strongly in research and
the research ecosystem as Microsoft.
Ms. Esty. I would also like you--all three of you have
mentioned the importance of education. I have a junior in
college who is doing computer science and astrophysics. But
there are not many girls in his class, I will tell you that,
very few young women. Could you talk about what you see as the
opportunities and what actually we can be doing particularly at
the younger ages? What can we be doing in this country, if we
are going to get U.S. competitiveness, which is this long
pipeline? And as he tells me, Mom, these classes are really
hard. I could be doing much better in economics or in my major,
political science, but, you know, computer science and physics
are really hard. So what can we--your insights, what can we do
with MOOCs, with other things? What should we be doing as a
country and how does R&D fit into that?
Dr. McKinley. So we have to have better math and IT
education. Right now, computer science is--the AP class is only
taught in five percent of high schools across the country. If
people, especially women and minorities, don't have exposure to
computer science as high school students, they never decide to
pick it up in college anymore, because now, there is a
dichotomy of skills and they feel like they are already behind
because it is a hard major. And so I think what we need to be
doing is prepping more of our students in high school to have
the skills that at least it is a choice for them. So more
rigorous math and science classes and the preparation, the
right sets of skills so that they can do them.
Dr. Lazowska. A comment that I think is important is that
computer science needs to be viewed as part of STEM. In the
State of Washington, where I am, it is part of essentially
commercial education. It is in there with woodshop and metal
shop and cooking and, you know, I took print shop when I was in
high school in Washington, D.C., but I don't use it a lot
today. Every student going forward needs to understand what we
call computational thinking. Every field, whether it is biology
or sociology, is utilizing computational thinking. That is
models and algorithmic expression and decomposing problems into
pieces you can solve and assembling and testing those results.
We do this in our daily lives.
So I think of programming as the hands-on inquiry-based way
in which we teach computational thinking. It can be an end in
itself but at the K to 12 level, computational thinking as part
of STEM embodied in AP computer science, which uses programming
as an inquiry-based way to teach that, is critical for all
students.
Dr. Gaither. So this is a subject I am pretty passionate
about. And we lose a shocking number of our young girls around
third or fourth grade and we never get them back. I have a
daughter that is struggling right now as a junior to decide
whether she wants to go into a STEM field or into art. It is
really that far apart. I think we need to be a little more
aggressive and get funding streams to connect what is going on
in the undergraduate population and go all the way back into
the educational pipeline as far back as third grade and get
them thinking about the computational thinking but also give
them examples. Why are we doing this? Why do we care? How will
it benefit society? In my experience, the young girls that I
have worked with, once you educate them about how it is going
to impact society, they are all on board. They are interested.
Dr. McKinley. So I just want to add the creativity part of
computer science is often undervalued and that we want our
young people to know that they can be creators of technology;
it is not just consumers and users of it. And that it is now
easy with some of the technologies such as robotics, Kinect,
and other things to really help them if we provide some
educational tools to go along with some of these technologies
to help them see how to satisfy their needs for creativity in
this field, which is very exciting.
Dr. Lazowska. I wanted to say one word about MOOCs, which
is something that you raised and other Members have raised. The
notion that what you learn in college lasts you for a lifetime,
that is a notion we left behind in the 20th century. So one
thing MOOCs do is give you the opportunity to pick up knowledge
that you need throughout your lifetime. I think there is an
enormous amount of work to be done in understanding exactly how
people learn through MOOCs and figuring out how to use the
large-scale data to understand how people learn and how we can
teach them better.
We just ran a workshop the past two days in Washington,
D.C., on exactly this subject, which is what is the science
that we can do in this online scalable world to understand how
to teach and learn better? So I think there are enormous
opportunities here, particularly for lifelong learning. The
jury is still out on whether it dramatically changes the four-
year college experience or K to 12.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much. Yeah, in the area of
education--I will make a brief comment--there is a program in
Indiana, in Indianapolis, called Project Lead the Way. I don't
know if anyone has ever heard of that. But they are doing
exactly what some of you are talking about in high schools
around the country, a lot in Indiana, especially in Evansville
where I live, and focusing on engineering education, hands-on,
and how children and young adults learn better. If we can show
them exactly what you all have said, how it impacts them and
not just have it on a sheet of paper, so that is very
important.
I will now go into a second line of questioning. We have
votes coming up at three o'clock but I think we have time for a
second round of questioning. So I will yield to Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I always have to
mention--I do mention I have two degrees in engineering but I
always have to say that my wife has a degree in math, so we
cover a few of the STEM fields there.
I want to give Dr. Lazowska his opportunity here to do his
very short version of walking us through the--something you had
mentioned, talking about the technology that Apple pulled
together to develop the iPad, how they originated with federal
research investments. So you are going to get 4 minutes to do
this. We have had this done--you posted a briefing before for
the Committee on this, but can you give us a short version
right now? Just show us how federal research wound up in this
device.
Dr. Lazowska. Thank you so much. Here are just a couple of
examples. The multi-touch interface, this is the sort of zoom
with your fingers, goes back to federally supported research.
And in fact, in the late 1990s, Apple acquired a company spun
out from the University of Delaware with federal funding in
which this multi-touch gestural interface work was done. And
that became the interface on the original iPhone and now on the
iPad. That is one example. One of the great things about this
device is the suite of sensors. There is a GPS, there is a
compass, things like that, that tell you where you are, make
driving directions work in your GPS unit or in your iPad or
iPhone or Windows Phone I have to say. And these sensors go
back to physics research in the 1930s, all right, which led to
things like the atomic clocks which make the satellites work
and eventually the GPS that we deployed in satellites. The
miniaturization driven through the NITRD program of these
components makes it possible to put it in a phone or a device
like this.
Academic and industry research--much of the academic
research funded by the Federal Government has changed the way
we design integrated circuits and the very architecture of the
microprocessors. This is Dr. McKinley's--one of her
specialties. But we designed microprocessors, including the one
in this device, in an entirely different way to an entirely
different architecture than we were doing before the NITRD
investment. I could go on and on and I appreciate the
opportunity, but the important thing is the ideas in this
device go back in some cases to basic research 80 years.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. And maybe we could do another--
maybe come in again. I know some new Members of the Committee
maybe come in and get the extended version of----
Dr. Lazowska. We would welcome the opportunity. Thank you.
Mr. Lipinski. And since you didn't take up all the 4
minutes, I wanted to throw out another question just in general
about ideas about how can MOOCs help STEM education? How do you
see those? Briefly, what are your thoughts on that? Dr.
McKinley?
Dr. McKinley. So the reason the jury is out on MOOCs is
because we know that interactive activities with a great
teacher who inspires you, with someone who sees what you are
doing wrong as you try to work the problem, is one of the most
effective ways to get people excited and to educate them. So my
kids are seeing a flipped classroom right now where you have a
lecture from your regular teacher and then in the classroom you
are doing the example problems or working through a worksheet,
and so then, the teacher is watching you.
So I feel like that that is probably the most effective way
that we are going to see MOOCs, so you have the best lecturer
in the world, so people have polished this to be perfect, and
then you have tutors or your teacher is now doing the hands-on
watching how you understood, what kind of educational
experience that you need. Because although many computer
science lectures have just the professor talking at the front
of the room, that is not where you really learn how to do
computer science.
So it has to be a mix of these different learning styles
and MOOCs, I think, are going to have a role perhaps mostly in
lifelong learning with very motivated people who already
learned their learning style. But I think in terms of MOOCs
having a huge effect on my 11-year-old, I don't think that is
going to motivate him to do his math homework.
Mr. Lipinski. I think there is a lot more to say here but
just for my colleagues I think may have some questions, I am
going to yield back right now, and hopefully, we could come
back to this another time.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you. I yield to Mr. Stockman.
Mr. Stockman. I just have a quick question. This to me is
really phenomenal about computer security and everything. And
as you can tell from the line of questioning, I think it weighs
on a lot of our minds. And the Administration and Congress got
$800 billion or some people say 1 trillion in stimulus money.
Did any of you receive any of that or request any of that
funding for computer security?
Dr. McKinley. I got some of that money.
Mr. Stockman. How much did you get?
Dr. McKinley. I got $500,000 and I employed four graduate
students over the three courses of the year, and those people
are working at Intel, Facebook, and Google. And one of them is
a professor. So that helped create jobs because I was able to
hire graduate students and they are highly trained and----
Mr. Stockman. Was--excuse me. I apologize. We are running
short, close to vote, but was it specifically for computer
security?
Dr. McKinley. So this research spanned computer security
and computer systems, which I think is this intersection of
these two areas.
Mr. Stockman. Well, I am wondering because in terms of
money, in terms of government, you mentioned $90 million. That
seems nominal for such an important critical--I mean our
infrastructure is so dependent upon it, it is kind of, I don't
know, bizarre that we don't spend more money defending the life
system of this nation.
Dr. McKinley. The issue with cybersecurity is that it is
not just something, as Ed pointed out, that you can Band-Aid
on----
Mr. Stockman. Right, full-time----
Dr. McKinley. --it has to be--you have to have it as part
of the whole system that you are building. And so it is not
going to be solved just by the people who are only experts in
security working on it. It has to be partnership between people
who work on runtime systems and power efficiency and designing
architectures. These people have to work together and design
from the get-go. And so it is not enough to just say, oh, we
are going to explode the amount of money in computer security,
because the way you make these partnerships is much more
complicated and it requires a richer risk portfolio that has a
lot of investments in different areas to get people to partner
with them.
Mr. Stockman. But Dr. McKinley, what I am saying from our
standpoint, it would be helpful if we had some guidance because
I think this is very critical to our infrastructure. And I
appreciate you coming out today and I look forward to more
guidance and how we can help you secure our Nation's lifeblood.
I really appreciate all your help.
Dr. McKinley. So then these large multidisciplinary
projects where you are saying let us make some software systems
more secure, let us make architectures more secure, so it is a
partnering of people who are experts on cybersecurity and
people who are experts on that topic area that you are trying
to make more secure. I think those broad, multidisciplinary,
big-bet kind of investments that NSF has done very well in
several instances, including under my graduate career are the
ways to make that happen. And that is much more complicated
than just saying we are going to throw a ton of money at
cybersecurity and good luck. And we don't care if you partner
with anyone.
Mr. Stockman. Well, I don't know about saying good luck.
But I was actually following up on----
Dr. McKinley. No, no----
Mr. Stockman. --his comments that it was $90 million. And I
thought in terms of our goals and our objectives, I think $90
million would have been very wisely spent if we gave it to you.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you. And I--unless you want to
comment on that.
Dr. Lazowska. All I can say is that I agree with Dr.
McKinley and with you. There are some areas of critical
importance where we need greater investment, and it is
important to realize that the federal investment in fundamental
research is multiplied so many times over in its impact over
the long term.
Mr. Stockman. And I agree with you. I just wish we
allocated billions instead of millions. Thank you. I yield
back.
Chairman Bucshon. Gentleman yields back.
Ms. Esty?
Ms. Esty. Thank you. Yes, I would like to follow that up a
little bit because it seems to be part of this is the inherent
tension between what we do, which tends to be dealing with the
urgent; and the important, which is the long-term R&D. And so
how we get the marriage of those two so that we address these
important problems, Dr. Lazowska, you talked about the
importance of patience in basic R&D.
And we are facing--Representative Stockman and I sat in on
the same briefing by General Alexander, which was completely
terrifying to us about how incredibly vulnerable we are at
every level and we haven't even really talked about the energy
grid, which is truly stupefyingly terrible because we know they
don't even have systems that are 20 years old. They are older
than that right now. So that is a different order of challenge
because they aren't even operating the way they ought to be,
much less are they secure.
So if any of you have thoughts on how we balance this need
for problem-solving about these urgent, immediate needs and yet
also fund basic research that we can't exactly say where is it
going to lead but we do know it is going to lead to these
important innovations down the road.
Dr. Lazowska. I am afraid this is why we vote for you.
These are very difficult challenges.
I will say that shortly after September 11, 2001, I was on
a National Academies panel that looked at IT R&D relative to
national security, and what we concluded was precisely that
investments in protecting our vast infrastructure that relies
on computing are much more important than my inability to buy
from Amazon one afternoon because the Internet is down. All
right? So every element of our critical national infrastructure
relies now inherently on information systems. And we have to
recognize that does represent a huge vulnerability.
Chairman Bucshon. All right. I would like to thank the
witnesses for their valuable and very interesting testimony.
And I have one of those new Xboxes by the way. My kids love it.
It is just awesome. Got it for Christmas.
There are Members of the Committee who may have additional
questions for you and we will ask that you respond to those in
writing. The record will remain open for two weeks for
additional comments and written questions from the Members. The
witnesses are excused and the hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 3:02 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]