Demand For Supercomputers Increases

The market for supercomputers is increasing, and it doesn’t look its going to slow down given applications to tackle complex scientific questions and help with research, national security, image rendering, pharmaceuticals and even for commercial purposes.

There was a super computer recently installed in Illinois and Texas in a space equivalent of a basketball court which is used to research and calculate climate change, earthquake prediction and even for the medical field.

The prices of super computers start from around $500,000. Cray, Inc. a Seattle-based super computer company published the report that their profit went up 11 times as they’ve achieve $161.2 Million mark, the company is enjoying 78% of increased revenue, which amounts to $421 Million.

Super Computers are usually used for conducting many computer simulation, emphasizing on theoretical research, simulating physical experiments and an even in-depth research about any scientific phenomena. Usually they are funded by U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Yet the United States isn’t the only reason why this hike in demand of Super Computers is present. Research institutions in European and Asian country have stepped up to assemble and use larger and faster supercomputers for national security and for nations’ economy. Private companies that make pharmaceuticals, auto makers and even companies in the field of energy have increased their purchase and consumption of the processing power that only a supercomputer can offer.

There are many companies that have been using x86 based supercomputers with specialized chips made by few companies, mostly for rendering video games.

The project director Oak Ridge National Laboratory who oversees the $100 Million “Titan” supercomputer said,”We have a lot of architectures. We have more diversity today than we’ve had in a very long time.”

Source: WSJ Online