The Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program: Background, Funding, and Activities

Citation
The Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program: Background, Funding, and Activities (CRS Report RL33586) (Mar. 27, 2012).

Overview
In the early 1990s, Congress recognized that several federal agencies had ongoing high performance computing programs, but no central coordinating body existed to ensure long-term coordination and planning. To provide such a framework, Congress passed the High-Performance Computing and Communications Program Act of 1991 to enhance the effectiveness of the various programs. In conjunction with the passage of the act, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released Grand Challenges: High-Performance Computing and Communications. Current concerns are the role of the federal government in supporting IT R&D and the level of funding to allot to it. This report also looks at federal budgets for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program.