Sens. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) and Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), continuing their support of small businesses, introduced the Blue Collar Computing and Business Act of 2006 on June 15. The bill would create the Advanced Multidisciplinary Computing Software Institute (AMCSI) to help make existing high performance computing resources more accessible to small businesses and manufacturers.

“Small businesses and manufacturers are critical to growing our economy and we need to do all we can to support them,” said DeWine. “This bill would help small businesses become even more productive and competitive by allowing them to harness the cutting-edge, supercomputing technology that our larger corporations are already using. With this technology, small businesses in Ohio and across America will be able to compete even better in the expanding global marketplace.”

“We’ve seen small and mid-sized manufacturers, which provide good paying, family-supporting jobs for skilled workers, dwindle in number and decline in productivity because they don’t have access to the same high-tech equipment that giant companies rely on. It makes sense to establish these regional high-tech centers where expertise can be shared and experience can be tapped -- one-stop shopping for small businesses and manufacturers who want to make sure their enterprises thrive in an evolving marketplace,” Kohl said.

Advances in computational science and high performance computing provide a competitive advantage because they allow businesses to run faster simulations of complex systems or to develop more precise computer models. As the Council on Competitiveness has said, America’s small businesses and manufacturers will have to “out-compute to out-compete.” However, even though small businesses and manufacturers would benefit greatly from high performance computing, access to such technology is often prohibitively expensive, or requires specialized technical expertise.

The Blue Collar Computing and Business Assistance Act would authorize up to $25 million per year for five years for the Department of Commerce to create up to five new supercomputing centers across the country. Staff from these centers would help small businesses find areas where supercomputing would help them stay competitive and then link the business with existing supercomputing labs to execute those plans. The centers would also develop software specifically designed to meet the needs of small businesses.

This bill is the latest in DeWine’s and Kohl’s efforts to support America’s small businesses and manufacturers. Most recently, they worked to fully fund the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), and have also joined as co-sponsors of S. 2134, the Manufacturing Technology Competitiveness Act (MTCA). The MTCA would reauthorize and expand the MEP program as well as other Commerce Department programs focused on promoting competitiveness in the manufacturing sector.

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