Contact: Bob Ratliff
A Mississippi State University professor is among a group of national scientists and business leaders recommending the doubling of federal funding for advanced information technology by 2004.
Joe Thompson is one of 26 members of President Clinton's Information Technology Advisory Committee, which is recommending a federal investment of more than $1.3 billion in information technology over the next five years. The Giles Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering at MSU is a specialist in computational field simulation.
Last week's recommendation by the committee--almost equally divided between leading university researchers and executives from IBM, Microsoft, AT&T, and other technology companies--comes at a time when the nation's information technology sector is thriving.
This computer technology must not be taken for granted, Thompson said. Microchips, the Internet and related advances have evolved into common usage primarily because of "fundamental research funded by the government years ago," he observed.
"Increased research is needed to produce robust software, more powerful supercomputers and communications networks capable of handling the one billion users expected to be on the Internet by 2005," Thompson said.
Computer manufacturers and other information technology companies are under increasing competitive pressure to focus on short-term product development rather than long-term research, presidential committee members noted in their report.
"With the end of the Cold War, federal investment in most areas of information-technology research declined and the private sector has not taken up the slack," Thompson said. "Yet the nation's economy is increasingly dependent on this sector."
The White House and federal agencies appear receptive to the panel's appeal. Following the release of a preliminary report last year, the Clinton Administration proposed a 28 percent increase in federally financed information-technology research for fiscal year 2000.