REMARKS AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY - SANDY K. BARUAH , ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT NATIONAL SUMMIT ON AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2007

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

Well, we’ve had a great day, and I thank all of you for your participation. We’ll be serving some light hors d’oeuvres in just a few moments – but while we are waiting, we have two very special presentations for you; one from the Council on Competitiveness and one from CNBC – they are worth sticking around for and I know you’ll enjoy them.

In order to make the networking session to follow more productive – to maximize the connections – we have divided the room into three (3) sections.

• Education and Workforce:

• Innovation Partnership; and

• Energy

So, based on your specific interests, you can gather around the appropriate issue area (describe location of issues…) and chat with folks with similar interests. We hope this helps facilitate connections.

Today, we had an outstanding set of though-provoking discussions about the critical role innovation plays in maintain our competitive advantage.

Our speakers were equal parts high-profile, high-energy, high-intellect, and high-importance. While our panelists came from all segments of our economy; the private sector, the public sector, and academia, they shared a central message: that we simply cannot do things the way we have done them in the past and still expect to remain at the head of the global competitiveness pack.

The 21st Century economy demands a new threshold of creativity, insight, and innovation.

We learned that we are living in a truly global economy, where our competition comes not from the company next door, but any person on any point on this globe with a good education, a good idea, and good Internet connection.

We were reminded that competition is intense and that pace of change will only continue to accelerate. Here’s a little factoid to keep in mind: it took 55 years for the automobile to reach one-quarter of the U.S. population. It took only 7 years for the Internet to reach the same level of market penetration. Imagine how quickly we will adopt the next big thing.

The importance of public-private partnerships was stressed. No one sector can succeed on its own – and we are all interconnected. The relationship between government, business, non-profit institutions, and the research community will need to re-thought and expanded.

If there was a central theme of the day it was this: innovation is our only possible sustainable competitive advantage in the 21st century. Certainly, macro economic factors are important, but our ability to innovate is our – and every other country’s – only possible sustainable competitive advantage. If we maintain our leadership in innovation, we will maintain our leadership in economic prosperity.

If we are going to be innovative in the future, we can no longer rely on business models, or government approaches, that were conceived and built for yesterday’s world.

We also can’t rely on yesterday’s computing technology. One area that we didn’t have time to explore today is how the use of High Performance Computing can and will contribute to our nation’s competitive advantage.

High Performance Computing – HPC – is truly a “game changing” technology that is helping many companies to make competitive leaps – providing them market leadership and pricing advantage.

It accelerates the innovation process by shrinking “time-to-insight” and “time-to-solution” for both discovery and invention. HPC technology has allowed Boeing to fundamentally change the way they develop an aircraft. The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner was brought to reality – using radically different methods – through the use of HPC.

In fact, modeling and simulation with HPC has had a profound—but somewhat invisible—impact on U.S. competitiveness. HPC has allowed the development of:

• Better performing and safer automobiles;

• Improved and environmentally friendly packaging for consumer products; and

• Better understanding of diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s – and advancements in drug research to combat these diseases.

Companies that leverage HPC tools realize a range of competitive benefits, from shortened development cycles, faster time to market, and reduced production costs…all of which improve a company’s bottom line and the country’s competitiveness.

And with many of our HPC facilities located on university campuses – in fact the 7th largest supercomputer in the world is located at Rensselaer Polytechnic University in New York – it affords a new opportunity for partnership between business and academia.

HPC creates critical economic advantages at the national, regional, corporate, and university levels, pushing the boundaries of fundamental knowledge in ways that bolster U.S. leadership.

Which is why the Department of Commerce is pleased to be partnering with the Council on Competitiveness to promote the use of HPC, and why we are working together to help companies and regions across the country become more familiar with this technology.

But don’t take my word for it. I invite you to watch a special message that was sent in today from a team that wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for High Performance Computing.

Unfortunately they couldn’t be with us…but I think you will enjoy hearing what they have to say about how important HPC is to our everyday lives and the competitiveness of our nation. If you don’t recognize them – your kids certainly will.

And immediately after this special message, we will be showing you a presentation by Maria Bartiromo and CNBC. Enjoy.

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