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Pittsburgh's strength in key emerging technologies holds promise for the regional economy and benefits for the nation as a whole, National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement said Wednesday.

"In almost all of the emerging technologies -- biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology -- Pittsburgh is near the top of the list," said Bement at a round-table discussion with university, business and government representatives hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council in Oakland yesterday.

Bement, who was in the city for the debut of the new Cray XT3 "Big Ben" supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, said the nation's ability to remain competitive in the global marketplace depends more than ever on the ability to react quickly to changing conditions and to reduce the lead time it takes to bring new processes and products to the marketplace.

"Certainly, you have got some major industries here ... and you can take that technology and use it to devise new products," he said.

The National Science Foundation has provided millions of dollars in funding to the Pittsburgh area, including $9.7 million to buy the new, more powerful supercomputer for Pittsburgh Super Computing Center that was unveiled yesterday. Another example is about $10 million provided annually for the Institute of NanoScience and Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

Nanotechnology is the science of working with things that are one-billionth of a meter, or more than 1,000 times narrower than the diameter of a human hair.

Pitt in March announced plans for a $6.1 million nanotech research center, with the hope of garnering more of the $800 million a year the foundation invests in such research in hopes of spurring new economic development opportunities here, including generating start-up companies.

Research funding for area universities is becoming more important for locally based companies in their efforts to develop new products, said Lawrence B. Friedman, of Bayer Material Science, a unit of Bayer Corp. Friedman said Bayer has academically funded projects under way at about a half-dozen universities.

"What universities do extremely well is develop new knowledge, new discoveries, fundamental science," said Friedman, whose job includes working to establish relationships between his company and the schools. "What companies do well is develop products."

According to the most recent "State of the Industry" report released by the Technology Council in March, university research and development spending has been trending upward in the 13-county Pittsburgh region, with nearly $600 million in such spending in 2002 -- about 20 percent, or $100 million, more than in 2001.

Also, the region's universities graduated 7,279 science and engineering students in 2002, compared to 6,972 in 2001.

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