Community of Interest Workshop on Future Scientific Methodologies

Note : This workshop will now be held August 4-6 in Washington, D.C.

The Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE/SC)’s national laboratories will evolve greatly over the next 10-30 years, including in the science performed, scientific methodologies employed, facilities operated, and users supported. To inform its future planning, DOE's Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) is hosting an exploratory Community of Interest Workshop on Future Scientific Methodologies in Washington, DC, August 4-6, 2020, to examine how this evolution will shape, and be shaped by, the computational fabric: the data, storage, computing, and network infrastructure, and the methods and software that scientists and engineers use to leverage that infrastructure. This workshop provides a unique opportunity to envision and influence these changes.

We seek the broadest possible set of perspectives on how these changes will impact how DOE/SC serves as an exemplar of 21st Century discovery science. Stakeholders and interested parties are encouraged to submit 1-page white papers advocating topics and ideas that explore this issue. Note that we seek long-term perspectives (what will be different in 10-30 years), not tactical thoughts on near-term directions.

The following are examples of the sorts of questions that we hope to see discussed:

• The impact of new scientific methodologies, such as AI assistants and automated and autonomous experimental facilities
• The impact of new technological approaches, such as automated software synthesis, and AI acceleration of numerical simulation
• How humans and machines will generate, use, and interact with data and information
• The impacts of new needs from users and operators of existing and new scientific facilities on the computational fabric
• How a wide array of computers (e.g., embedded devices to quantum accelerators, to traditional supercomputers) will operate as an integrated set of computational devices
• How storage technologies located in multiple locations (e.g., in network, archival, caches) will accelerate data sharing and processing
• How advanced network technologies (e.g., SDN, embedded storage/compute, NFV, 5G/6G) will fundamentally blur the separation of network and site
• What impacts these changes will have on the lab workforce (e.g., where they work, how they interact with facilities, scientists, and peers) and the science user communities that they support

Accepted white papers will be shared with workshop participants and included in the workshop report, and selected authors will be invited to attend.