Representative Randy Hultgren (R-IL) unveiled a discussion draft of the American High-End Computing Leadership Act that would modify the DOE High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004 to increase funding for the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. If enacted, this bill would provide $110 million each year for FY 2014 and 2015 to develop two or more exascale computing systems in national laboratories for use by industry, academia, and other labs. The increase in budget would be split between the DOE’s Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The President’s FY 2014 budget request for DOE includes a $400 million annual increase in order to obtain exascale computing by 2020. Exascale, or extreme scale, computing is nearly 1000 times faster than supercomputers today, and would provide a way to analyze tremendous amounts of data for researchers in climate studies, energy studies, and many other fields.