by Angela Guess
Steve Lohr of the NY Times reports, “The federal government is beginning a major research initiative in big data computing. The effort, which will be announced on Thursday, involves several government agencies and departments, and commitments for the programs total $200 million. Administration officials compare the initiative to past government research support for high-speed networking and supercomputing centers, which have had an impact in areas like climate science and Web browsing software. ‘This is that level of importance,’ said Tom Kalil, deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. ‘The future of computing is not just big iron. It’s big data.’”
Lohr continues, “The private sector is the leader in many applications of big data computing. Internet powers like Google and Facebook are masters at instantaneously mining Web data, click streams, search queries and messages to finely target users for online advertisements. Many major software companies, including I.B.M., Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and SAS Institute, and a growing band of start-ups, are focused on the opportunity in big data computing.”
Lohr adds, “Still, there is an important complementary role for the government to play where the incentives for private investment are lacking, according to administration officials and computer scientists. Such areas, they say, include scientific discovery in fields like astronomy and physics, research into policy issues like privacy, and funding for research at universities, where the high-technology work force of the future is educated.”
