The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL has been exploring the energy
frontier of nuclear physics since 2001. Its performance, flexibility and
continued innovative upgrading can sustain its physics output for years to
come. Now, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is about to extend the frontier
energy of laboratory nuclear collisions by more than an order of magnitude. In
the coming years, its physics reach will evolve towards still higher energy,
luminosity and varying collision species, within performance bounds set by
accelerator technology and by nuclear physics itself. Complementary high-energy
facilities will include fixed-target collisions at the CERN SPS, the FAIR
complex at GSI and possible electron-ion colliders based on CEBAF at JLAB, RHIC
at BNL or the LHC at CERN.Comment: Invited talk at the International Nuclear Physics Conference,
Vancouver, Canada, 4-9 July 2010, to be published in Journal of Physics:
Conference Series. http://inpc2010.triumf.ca
