Obama and IBM Create Massive Data Mining Initiative

Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post

Earlier this year, the Obama administration announced a massive data mining initiative where federal resources would be used to collect vast amounts of data concerning subjects of science, economy, environment and medicine.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is teaming up with IBM to create “deep computing solutions” (DCS) an element of the LLNL’s High Performance Computing Innovation Center (HPCIC).

IBM and LLNL will be a “foundational stone” to solving business problems, according to James Sexton, program director of the TJ Watson Computational Science Center at IBM. Sexton says: “It could be an engineering design for a new aircraft or gas turbine engine. It could be an agricultural system where you’re managing the land and want to minimize damage to the environment.”

In June of 2011, LLNL’s HPCIC was given the responsibility to influencing public industry with purposes of having a direct hand in the collaboration of private sector corporations and the US government. Discoveries made with technology under the thumb of the LLNL would be used to assist US corporations. As government run laboratories working with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Department of Energy (DOE) can influence elected officials to support government agendas with multi-million dollar budgets under the promise of bettering the economy.

HPCIC reflects the same partnership with the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and various other relationships between corporations and government. In terms of the global market, private corporations teaming up with governments ensures special privilege and access to superior technologies that can dominate over the average flow of the financial markets.

By using new energy systems and data mining for informatics-type applications assist the advent of an encompassing Big Brother surveillance state.

National laboratories are concerned with maintaining sensitive data as well as monitoring the computing community as they control the technology released to the mainstream.

The HPCIC program has enormous resources allocated to its support network; a myriad of supercomputers, such as 5 (peak) petaflop Blue Gene/Q supercomputer. Known as Vulcan , the LLNL has access to this 400-teraflop system, with another 5-teraflop machine scheduled for construction in the summer of 2012.

Doug East, deputy department head for the LLNL explains that Vulcan is slated for use as a capacity machine “with the ability to schedule capability-class jobs as well, including dedicated access times for petascale efforts as they evolve.”

There is also the $200 million contracted Dawn which is another of LLNL’s 5-teraflop Blue Gene/P systems. Sequoia is a new 20-petaflop Blue Gene/Q which is the world’s most powerful supercomputer. These technologies are in the hands of the US government.

Sequoia’s purpose is to serve the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) with national nuclear weapons maintenance and stockpile information. Vulcan controls private sector business power with a specific focus on transportation, manufacturing and energy generation. This supports the DOE in the advancement of energy procurement and the NNSA’s national and economic energy security. NNSA’s unclassified research, with the LLNL’s academic alliances, over-reach scientific and technological efforts.

Vulcan is available on demand, however, the HPCIC’s affiliations with Energy Exemplar and Navistar, the DOE retains open access initiatives based on corporate proposals.

Private sector relationships with the LLNL support the necessity of the US government’s justification for such elaborate computing abilities. Frederick Streitz, HPCIC director points out: “We believe that we can help American industry solve some of their largest problems, taking their computing to the next level, and using that capability that we have developed in order to help them be more competitive in their business.”

IBM has provided partners to LLNL, allowing business and government interests to be intertwined. Sexton sees this marriage was not only profitable but essential to ensuring simulations and models that will influence decision making, how the system actually functions and how computational models will be applied.

Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism. Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporately funded mainstream media. You can find us on our Facebook page.