美国正失去领导地位 IT业21世纪属于亚洲？

    CNET科技资讯网5月12日国际报道

   星期四，美国议会的科学委员会将就信息技术方面的研究基金举行听证会。本次听证会将判定哪个国家在21世纪将成为关键IT创新的领导者。

   一些历史经验可以作为参考。1957年，苏联发射的人造卫星给美国敲响了警种。为此，美国专门成立了 “国防远景研究项目处”（the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency），这个机构专门负责高风险，高回报的项目研究，它雇佣了许多精英。

    从那以后，美国IT业的创新活动在政府研究基金的充分帮助下发展起来了，政府基金对美国在IT领域保持领先地位至关重要。国防远景研究项目处与美国国家科学基金会资助了美国绝大多数的学术IT研究。IT研究除了催生了互联网，纽约及纳斯达克股市上的IT公司以及目前世界绝大多数的先进军事技术以外，IT研究已经成为驱动经济发展的关键因素。

    上一个10年，美国9%的国民生产总值产品与IT有关。2001年，美国科学与工程协会的一份报告评选的19个IT研究项目的价值超过了10亿美元。政府基金在这些研究项目中都发挥了主要的作用。

过去10年，国防远景研究项目处与美国国家科学基金会的基金资助重点与政策已经发生了许多的改变。目前，国防远景研究项目处要求一个研究项目在12个月内证明自己是否可行，这个机构现在不太鼓励长期的研究。另外，原先主要面向学术机构的基金投放现在进行了分类投放，还有一些项目还有研究人员身份方面的限制。

过去5年，向国家科学基金会提起的IT资助申请从2千件上升到了6500件，这让许多申请无法获得资金。不幸的是，其它部门并没有帮上忙。美国国土安全部每年投向IT研究方面的资金仅有几百万美元。美国国家航空和宇宙航行局也缩减了IT方面的投入，三月，国家航空和宇宙航行局鼓励自己硅谷的70%的员工退休。

也不能指望IT行业自身进行长期的研究投入。具有讽刺意味的，美国的高科技行业越来越依赖于政府的研究资助以及学术机构的合作。甲骨文，戴尔，思科系统都没有研究实验室，只有IBM和微软还保持着大型，稳定的研发势头。

世界其它地方却在前进。

中国总理温家宝最近访问了印度，两国正协商下一代IT技术的合作开发事宜，中国生产硬件，印度开发软件。他预计，随着两国争取世界IT业领导者步伐的加快，IT业的亚洲时代很快将到来。

历史也证明，IT业的风云变幻。我没有理由不认为这样的时代不会降临在这些国家上。事实上，最近的计算机协会举办的“国际大学编程竞赛”就很说明问题，4支亚洲参赛队伍全部获奖，他们还夺得了冠军，而美国队却只名列第17位，有史以来最糟糕的成绩。如果美国政府的相关政策继续下去的话，IT业的领导地位将可能很容易的拱手让给亚洲。

我想在此次听证会上问两个问题：美国在IT业的领导优势输给中国或印度的话，这一消息是否让美国人如50年前听到苏联人造卫星上天那样吃惊？如果美国必须面临Ji烈的竞争，难道吸引最好，最聪明人才到美国大学来工作学习的方法不如让他们呆在其它地方进行创新的方法好吗？ （编辑：孙莹）

Surrendering U.S. leadership in IT

The hearing, to be conducted Thursday by the House Science Committee, will focus on the state of research funding for information technology. Such funding, and the innovation it spurs, is vital to the U.S. economy and national defense.

Some historical perspective illuminates what's at stake. In 1957, the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union sent a wake-up call to the U.S. In response, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was created and charged with preventing such technological surprises in the future. DARPA funded high-risk, high-reward research and sought to engage the best minds.

Since then, innovation in U.S. IT has grown substantially under government-funded research and has been critical to this nation's leadership in technology. DARPA, together with the National Science Foundation, funds most academic IT research in this country. In addition to swatting home runs such as the Internet, the majority of IT companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, and the most technically advanced military in the world, IT research has become a key economic driver. In the last decade alone, IT was responsible for 9 percent of the United States' gross national product. In 2001, a National Academies of Science and Engineering report gave 19 examples of IT research leading to industries worth a billion dollars or more. Federally funded academic research played a major role in every case.

Over the last 10 years, however, there's been a major shift in funding priorities and policy at DARPA and the National Science Foundation. The current DARPA policy, which mandates 12-month "go/no go" research milestones for IT, has shortened deadlines, thus discouraging long-term research. In addition, programs formerly open to academics are now classified; other programs have citizenship restrictions. In three years, DARPA halved academic IT research to $123 million in fiscal year 2004. DARPA today is no longer engaging all the best talent in long-term research, which has been so vital to America's prowess in defense and essential to a robust economy.

The effects of this significant funding shift are far-reaching and long-lasting. In the last five years, IT proposals to the National Science Foundation jumped from 2,000 to 6,500, forcing the agency to leave many worthy proposals unfunded. Sadly, other agencies are not stepping in to take up the challenge. The Department of Homeland Security, which some hoped would augment the Science Foundation and DARPA, spends just a few million dollars per year for IT research. NASA also is downsizing its IT effort; in March it encouraged all but 70 of its 1,400 employees at its Silicon Valley center to retire.

Nor can we count on the IT industry itself for long-term research investment. Ironically, the high-tech industry increasingly depends on government-funded research partnerships with academic institutions to spur innovations. Those new companies that sprang to life in the recent past--Oracle, Dell, Cisco Systems--have no research labs. And of the established IT companies, only IBM and Microsoft maintain large and growing research arms.

If declining U.S. research funding simply slowed the pace of IT innovation, perhaps the upcoming House Science Committee hearing wouldn't be as critical to the nation as it is to the research community. However, the rest of the world isn't standing still.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recently went to India to propose co-development of the next generation of IT, with China producing hardware and India developing software. He predicted the coming of the Asian century of the IT industry, as both countries strive for worldwide leadership in IT.

The history of IT is littered with companies that lost substantial leads in this fast-changing field. I see no reason why it couldn't happen to countries. Indeed, at the recent International Collegiate Programming Contest of the Association for Computing Machinery, four Asian teams finished in the top dozen, including the champion, while the best U.S. finish was 17th, the country's worst showing ever. If current U.S. government policies continue, IT leadership could easily be surrendered to Asia.

Allow me to suggest two questions for the hearing: Could loss of IT leadership--meaning, for example, that the IT available to the U.S. might be inferior to that of China or India--lead to a technological surprise akin to the one with Sputnik 50 years ago? And, if the U.S. must face serious competition for leadership, isn't it better to attract the best and brightest to U.S. universities to come and work to help grow the American economy, rather than have them innovate elsewhere?

biography
David A. Patterson is president of the Association for Computing Machinery and holds the Pardee Chair of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and the National Academy of Engineering.