Pete Domenici: “Today's Washington Post Science section contains an excellent summary on the work America is doing to develop the…”

“Today's Washington Post Science section contains an excellent summary on the work America is doing to develop the fastest computers in the world and the benefits to all of us from such computers. The headline on the story, 'Faster Computers Accelerate Pace of Discovery,' captures today and hints at tomorrow for science, using computers that have processing speeds of more than a thousand trillion calculations per second. That speed is known as a petaflop, in computer science speak. I am proud that the first petaflop computer in the world is likely to be at Los Alamos National Laboratory in my home State of New Mexico. Working in conjunction with IBM, LANL's 'Roadrunner' computer holds out the promise of immense advances in almost every aspect of scientific inquiry. In the area of nuclear weapons, for example, computing power increases are critical. Two decades ago, this Nation decided to stop underground testing of nuclear weapons. Yet the necessity of certifying the reliability and performance of our nuclear stockpile remains. How could we do away with underground testing and still have the three weapons lab directors certify to the President that our weapons were safe and reliable? We decided to adopt a program called Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship. Essentially, we decided to simulate a nuclear weapons explosion using computer power. Clearly, America needed more computing power when we made this decision.”