The Challenge for computational science

The High Performance Computer and Computational Science communities face three major challenges: The Performance Challenge, making the next generation of high performance computers, The Programming Challenge, writing codes that can run on the next generation of very complicated computers, and The Prediction Challenge, writing very complex codes that can give accurate answers that can be relied upon for the important decisions that determine the future of society. The first challenge is being met. The second challenge needs work and focus, but is being addressed. The Computational Science community is, however, falling short of meeting the third challenge. It needs to focus on reaching the same level of credibility and maturity as the accepted methodologies of theory, experiment and engineering design.