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News Release 96-044

The Next Generation Internet: NSF Announces Awards for New High Performance Connections


August 15, 1996

This material is available primarily for archival purposes. Telephone numbers or other contact information may be out of date; please see current contact information at media contacts.

Today the National Science Foundation recommended the first set of 13 awards for innovative high performance connections.

As more and more increasingly sophisticated tools are developed for the Internet, the demand for high performance connections grows, especially within the research and education community. In March, the National Science Foundation introduced a new twist to its connections program to help solve the problem: emphasizing innovative solutions that may eventually have broad implications for the next generation of the Internet. Funding has now been recommended for the first set of 13. About 35 more applications will be considered in the second round.

"There is no single ideal solution--as evidenced by the fact that we have already received so many strong, fundable proposals," said Mark Luker, who manages the program for NSF. "We've asked researchers to come to us with a demonstrated need for high performance networking and a willingness to work toward innovative solutions with their campus network providers--and clearly there is a great interest in the community."

New applications include distributed computing, remote access to instruments, visualization of weather, chemical reactions, medicine, multimedia collaboration and others, all of which depend on the advanced capabilities of the vBNS, NSF's high performance backbone network.

These connections are expected to form the core of a new community for advanced applications of networking that will speed the pace of research and development in the U.S.

The following are examples of the types of awards, with contact information:

  • Tom DeFanti, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago; tom@uic.edu; (312) 996-3002
    Award: $350K
    Meritorious applications include: data intensive computing; digital libraries; visualization and steering of computation; and 3-D collaboration
    Collaborating with: Northwestern University; University of Chicago; and Carnegie Mellon University

  • Oliver McBryan, University of Colorado-Boulder; Oliver.McBryan@cs.colorado.edu; (303) 665-0544 and (303) 492-3898
    Award: $287K
    Meritorious applications include: Grand Challenge Application Group (GCAC) - Coupled Fields and GAFD Turbulence; HBNG users (meritorious access HPCC groups)
    Collaborating with: NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) and Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center

  • Earving Blythe, Virginia Tech; BLYTHE@VT.EDU; (540) 231-4227
    Award: $350K
    Meritorious applications include: high performance remote computing; interactive multi media; digital libraries; mathematics; high-speed civil transportation
    Collaborating with: Virginia Broadband Education Network (VBEN)

  • Paul Woodward, Univ. of Minnesota; paul@lcse.umn.edu; (612) 626-0044
    Award: $350K
    Meritorious applications include: distributed parallel storage and computing; visual Supercomputing; collaborative scientific visualization

-NSF-

Media Contacts
Beth Gaston, NSF, (703) 292-8070, email: egaston@nsf.gov

The U.S. National Science Foundation propels the nation forward by advancing fundamental research in all fields of science and engineering. NSF supports research and people by providing facilities, instruments and funding to support their ingenuity and sustain the U.S. as a global leader in research and innovation. With a fiscal year 2023 budget of $9.5 billion, NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives more than 40,000 competitive proposals and makes about 11,000 new awards. Those awards include support for cooperative research with industry, Arctic and Antarctic research and operations, and U.S. participation in international scientific efforts.

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