Crisis in Computing

There is a real opportunity here for those of us in CS to ramp up the research opportunities in high-performance computing. The author expresses deep concern about the U.S. losing its prominence in HPC. I can't say that I disagree at all. His one quote essentially summarizes the U.S. role in the computing sciences over the past 10-15 years. He states

So, you’d think we’d stay on top of our game. Instead, we’re getting jumped by moves we invented.

This has been happening for many years, in a large number of industries. And... it's nobody fault but ours. The private, public, and academic sectors collectively and separately have lost a tremendous amount of momentum in computer science research. It is going to take substantial funding and innovative minds willing to sacrifice big money opportunities for a while in order to focus on these enormous opportunities, and help us catch up. You can't rely on the public sector, because they only care about making sure they maximize their quarterly profits. They probably will not be willing to sacrifice the type of funding required here. The majority of the big players in the private sector, despite being a valuable source of novel ideas needed here, are too limited in their funding opportunities, and when substantial funding does arrive, usually it is in the form of a buyout. That leaves the academic sector, which has been hit rather hard by the economic downturn. Funding opportunities will either come from large corporate interests (see above), or the government. Though the government has been a little more generous than it was in the previous administration, it still leaves us with need. Regardless, we don't have a choice. We need to start thinking outside of the box and jump on these opportunities and be willing to make some substantial sacrifices in the immediate future. It is the only way we as a country can possibly recover and become a formidable player in computer science once again.

On a related note... so many colleagues love to bash Microsoft. Yes, they have put out some shoddy software in their past. Name a software company that hasn't, and had the scope and user base that MS had. More importantly, who represents one of the biggest players in contributing enormous amounts of money toward computer science and philanthropic interests? At a time when we see so many greedy CEOs hoarding hundreds of millions of dollars to build their own interests, it is wonderful to see what the Gates Foundation has and continues to do. We need more of those that "have" that are willing to shell out their own hard earned money for many great causes.