In 2004, more than 500 leaders from around the world attended the National Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C., where the Council on Competitiveness released the landmark report, Innovate America: Thriving in a World of Challenge and Change. The report lays out an action agenda for a wide range of stakeholders to improve U.S. innovation capacity.

Researchers at Science Applications International Corporation in San Diego have been studying the sun’s corona and its impact on space weather for well over a decade. Advances in their understanding of the physics of solar activity, made possible by the use of supercomputers at the nearby NSF-funded San Diego Supercomputer Center, have allowed them to move from one-dimensional models of solar flares and coronal mass ejections to 3-D models that can more accurately predict the impact of these phenomena on weather in space. Space weather can have a major impact on Earth’s power grids, communications, satellites and other essential systems.

DreamWorks Animation SKG relies on powerful high performance computing (HPC) clusters to make its characters come alive.  But when the company’s software engineers needed to test new software concepts to significantly improve the capabilities of their proprietary tools, DOE’s INCITE program enabled the company to refine and test its redesigned software on the leadership-class supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.