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Welcome Address by Chairman, National Grid
Steering Committee at the Official Launch of the National
Grid Pilot Platform
1
November 2003
WELCOME ADDRESS BY MR PETER HO, CHAIRMAN NATIONAL GRID STEERING
COMMITTEE AND PERMANENT SECRETARY (DEFENCE), AT THE OFFICIAL
LAUNCH OF THE NATIONAL GRID PILOT PLATFORM ON SATURDAY, 1ST
NOVEMBER 2003, AT THE INSTITUTE OF HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING
Introduction
Towards
the end of last year, A*STAR launched an initiative to
create a National Grid for Singapore. This initiative
is now a national effort to promote grid computing, and to
develop a cyber-infrastructure for Singapore. This initiative
will support the growing demand for computing resources,
for example, from the biomedical researchers. Furthermore,
it is aligned to the drive to attract high value R&D
investments.
The National Grid
To give a boost to the initiative, A*STAR established a
National Grid Steering Committee. The Committee is made up
of volunteers from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines,
but who firmly believe that the future lies in grid computing.
They have sacrificed much time and effort to help the National
Grid initiative along. I would like to acknowledge their
contributions.
The Steering Committee has been mindful that the short history
of Information Technology and the Internet is littered with
stories of technologies that failed to deliver on the hype
that accompanied their launch. Also, the period for a technology
to mature can be long. There is a real danger that large
amounts of money may be spent trying to deliver a technology
before it is ready. The Steering Committee has therefore
tried to navigate the National Grid initiative along a middle
path, eschewing the hype, while working to prepare Singapore
to exploit this new technology when it is ready.
After
many rounds of consultation with the stakeholders, the
Steering Committee decided to adopt a co-funding approach
to install a high-speed network connecting the Universities
and the Research Institutes. The two research councils of
A*STAR, the Defence Science & Technology Agency, the
Economic Development Board, the Infocomm Development Authority
of Singapore, the National University of Singapore, the Nanyang
Technological University and the Singapore-MIT Alliance have
contributed equal amounts of money to fund the installation
and maintenance of the Pilot Platform.
Furthermore, the research institutes under A*STAR, NUS,
NTU and SMA have committed to share their technical computing
resources on this Pilot Platform.
The Steering Committee hopes that the launch of the National
Grid will be a catalyst to stimulate the latent interest
in grid computing. For example, in September, A*STAR organized
a workshop on Thematic Strategic Research on Grid Computing.
This workshop attracted more than 180 participants, and
42 research groups submitted their grid-related projects
for presentation. Today, several of the more prominent gridrelated
projects will be featured. The Inaugural Grid Innovation
Competition for students from the Institutes of Higher Learning
has also attracted many registrations.
The regular seminars on grid computing organised by the
National Grid Office have seen many international experts
among the speakers, and have consistently attracted more
than 100 participants each seminar.
In view of the strong interest, the National Grid is already
developing the plan for the next phase. This will include
the following:
(a) Attracting greater participation by extending the connectivity
of the Pilot Platform to the Singapore Management University,
the Polytechnics, and selected companies and schools.
(b) Extending the reach of the National Grid by improving
our international connectivity to other National Grids such
as the UK eScience and US NSF's Teragrid. This international
connectivity will make it easier for Singapore researchers
to collaborate with its counterparts in other parts of the
world.
(c) Enhancing the performance of the Pilot Platform by improving
the quality of service, infrastructure resiliency, improved
grid services and middleware and improved security.
Conclusion
The National Grid operates within a consultative and participative
model. We welcome greater participation from stakeholders
and partners so that together we can position Singapore as
a grid-enabled economy.
Thank you.
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