About SciDAC

Beyond the scientific computing and computational science research embedded in the Office of Science (SC) Core Programs, SC invests in a portfolio of coordinated research efforts directed at exploiting the emerging capabilities of terascale and petascale computing. The research projects in this portfolio respond to the extraordinary difficulties of realizing sustained peak performance for those scientific applications that require terascale and petascale capabilities to accomplish their research goals. They respond also to the need for developing collaborative software environments where distributed resources and expertise are combined to address complex questions that no single institution can manage alone.

In recognition of these difficulties, the SciDAC research projects are collaborative efforts involving teams of physical scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and computational scientists working on major software and algorithm development for and application to problems in the SC core programs, namely, Basic Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Fusion Energy Sciences, and Biological and Environmental Research. Research funded under the SciDAC program must address the interdisciplinary problems inherent in ultrascale computing, problems that cannot be addressed by a single investigator or small group of investigators. The latter are typically funded by the core research programs.

Background

SciDAC began as a five-year program by the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop the Scientific Computing Software and Hardware Infrastructure needed to use terascale computers to advance DOE research programs in basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research, fusion energy sciences, and high-energy and nuclear physics. This ambitious program was launched in FY 2001.

Scientific computing, including modeling and simulation, has become crucial for research problems that are insoluble by traditional theoretical and experimental approaches, hazardous to study in the laboratory, or time-consuming or expensive to solve by traditional means.

The DOE Office of Science (SC) has a long history of accomplishments in scientific computing and has often served as the proving ground for many new computer technologies. SC now intends to bring its experience and expertise to bear to realize the promise of terascale computers for its basic science programs. SciDAC focus areas include:

• Scientific Challenge Codes
• Computing Systems and Mathematical Software
• Collaboratory Software Infrastructure
• Scientific Computing Hardware Infrastructure
• Scientific Computing Software Infrastructure

Read the original SciDAC Program Plan.