Advanced Research Projects Agency 

 (ARPA) 



As the HPCC Program reaches the middle of its initial five-year phase, the ARPA program 

 is shifting focus from stimulating the development of the new scalable computing technology 

 base and early experimental use toward developing the technologies needed to enable a 

 broad base of applications and users, including their extension to a National Information 

 Infrastructure. In addition, the foundations for future generations of computing systems 

 involving even more advanced technologies are being developed. 



The current scalable computing technology base is char- 

 acterized by the first 100 gigaop class computing sys- 

 tems that are being experimentally used on a wide vari- 

 ety of problems in the scientific and engineering 

 research communities. Scalable operating systems are 

 enabling software development on high performance 

 workstations connected to higher performance servers 

 through networks. 



The experience gained in the early experimental use of 

 these new computing technologies is used to refine the 

 next generation and guide the development of more 

 advanced software and system development technolo- 

 gies. The combination of scalable computing and scal- 

 able networking technologies provides the foundation for 

 solving both Grand Challenges with large scale parallel 

 systems and National Challenges with large scale dis- 

 tributed systems. This enables HPCC to progress 

 toward an Nil. 



ARPA is the lead DOD agency for advanced technology 

 research and has the leadership responsibility for High 

 Performance Computing (HPC) within DOD. The ARPA 

 HPC Program develops dual use technologies with 

 broad applicability to enable the defense and intelligence 

 communities to build on commercial technologies with 

 rapid development of more specific characteristics when 

 needed. ARPA has no laboratories or centers of its own 

 and executes its programs in close cooperation with the 

 Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of 

 Scientific Research, the Army Research Office, Service 

 Laboratories, the National Security Agency, and other 

 DOD organizations and Federal agencies. ARPA partic- 

 ipates in joint projects with other agencies in the Federal 

 HPCC Program, a variety of Defense agencies, the 

 Intelligence community, and other Federal institutions. 



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