Supercomputing goes global

January 11, 2005 | Source: Computerworld

The world’s most powerful supercomputer likely will evolve into a grid architecture of loosely coupled systems harnessed logically to a single task across a global network.

A grid holds the most promise for delivering the biggest and baddest theoretical supercomputing architecture imaginable, a virtual multiple-instruction/multiple-data, or MIMD, global supercomputer.

Grid architectures rely more on specialized software than on fast hardware, and they’re attracting lots of research. Users in the interconnected world of 2010 will be able to make a Faustian bargain, joining a global supercomputing grid to sell their unused compute cycles to the highest bidder.

Imagine American teens selling FLOPS from video game or MP3 players to Asian weapons designers, or vice versa. It’s like taking electric current from a windmill and making your power meter go backward. Anybody care to make a wager?