President Obama today named his choices for the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), tapping tech industry luminaries such as Google's Eric Schmidt and Microsoft's Craig Mundie to serve on the 20-person body.

PCAST is designed to give the White House a pipeline to some of the leading voices in science, engineering and technology as the administration crafts policies in those areas.

The choice of Schmidt is hardly a surprise, as the Google CEO served as an economic advisor to then-candidate Obama, and represented him as a surrogate on the campaign trail.

Obama also stopped in at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., while campaigning, famously pledging to take a backseat to no one on Net neutrality, the issue he chose to headline his tech policy agenda.

Mundie is currently serving as Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, where he directs the company's long-term vision and oversees the health, education, robotics and energy businesses.

Mundie also brings extensive public policy experience, having served on the Council on Foreign Relations since 2002 and holding several other advisory roles throughout his career.

At PCAST, Schmidt and Mundie will serve alongside leading academics and researchers from a broad range of scientific fields, such as climate change, medicine and computer science.