INCITE Program 2007 Winners Announced

WASHINGTON—The Council on Competitiveness applauded the seven U.S. business firms that were named among the public and private-sector winners of 2007 awards under the Department of Energy’s (DOE) INCITE program. The INCITE (Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment) program will allocate a total of 95 million hours of time on some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers to research projects with strong potential for breakthrough advances in basic science or industrial research.

Based on recommendations by the Council on Competitiveness in 2005, the DOE extended the INCITE program beyond academia and government to U.S. industry. As a result, companies that depend on supercomputing to perfect their products and manufacturing processes were able to compete for access to U.S. government supercomputer resources. Pratt and Whitney, for example, received an INCITE Award in 2006 to run aircraft engine simulations critical to improving fuel efficiency while reducing emissions.

“The Council on Competitiveness’ research has demonstrated the positive impact of supercomputing on U.S. industrial competitiveness,” said Deborah L. Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness. “The Department of Energy is helping U.S. industry solve some of its most critical challenges, resulting in the high-value economic activity that is critical to American competitiveness. The INCITE program provides a double return on investment because it leverages the government’s investments in supercomputing while boosting American industrial and national competitiveness.”

At today’s event hosted by the Council on Competitiveness, DOE Under Secretary for Science Dr. Raymond Orbach announced new industrial award winners Corning, Inc., Fluent, Inc., and Proctor & Gamble, and renewed the awards for DreamWorks Animation, General Atomics, Pratt & Whitney and The Boeing Company. Orbach also named the INCITE award winners for research in basic science. The winning projects will gain access to supercomputers at DOE’s Leadership Computing Facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.