House approves supercomputing bill

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to expand a federal program created in 1991 in hopes of bolstering supercomputing and speedier networks. The bill requires multiple federal agencies to shift grants toward "basic research and education in all aspects of high-performance computing and networking" and requires the executive branch to select "grand challenges" that should be addressed by the government.

Affected agencies include NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The bill, approved by a voice vote, is called the High-Performance Computing Revitalization Act.