Following a year long study, and a report, by the US President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), the US has embarked on a major initiative in IT research. The initiative involves 6 government agencies and is focused on software, scalable information infrastructure, high speed computation, human computer interactions and the social, economic and workforce implications of IT. The National Science Foundation is the lead agency for the initiative. In the 2000 fiscal year NSF was given a budget increase of US$90 million for research and US$36 million to acquire a Terascale computing system for large scale computation. Similar increases are expected for FY2001 with an increased focus on applications of IT. The initiative is based on the premise that innovation results from the application of new knowledge, created by fundamental research. Innovation is closely coupled to economic growth and prosperity.