The Age of the Supercomputer

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Many big companies don't know it yet, but they will become increasingly dependent on their supercomputers, just as in the 1970s, when businesses began to lean heavily on their mainframes. As prices continue to fall and usability improves, even smaller companies, especially those that are part of big-company supply chains, will be able to tap the increased efficiency made possible by supercomputers.

Taming the Rebel Computer

There will be some culture shock, even outright resistance, perhaps, before supercomputers come to be seen as natural extensions of Fortune 500 computer rooms and data centers. Your average chief information officer, coming from a background in business and traditional computing methods, will cock an unsure eye at technology born of the physical sciences and proven in mostly engineering applications.

I'll hedge a bit when it comes to financial firms. Wall Street quants understand the dollars generated by algorithms running on 131,000 processors at once. To the majority of IT managers, supercomputers are outliers, rebels that can still only be tamed by an experienced few. But eventually, supercomputers, one of the fastest-growing segments of the computer hardware market, (9.4% compound annual growth rate), will be embraced by the traditional CIO community.

These large computers will even find their way to the smallest manufacturers. The Ohio Supercomputer Center, for example, offers the state's welders and machinists supercomputer time via the Internet to model welding techniques and prototypes for their larger clients. After year one of a pilot with a group of 200 welders, the results have been encouraging, cutting from weeks to hours the amount of time needed to run a typical simulation of welding a new material.

A New Revolution

Some hurdles remain, notably the dearth of commercial software. Yet, 10 years since Deep Blue's historic chess game, signs bode well for the widespread commercial adoption of supercomputers.

The last silicon revolution saw PCs invade the office and automation take over the factory floor. During that period—from 1977 to 2001—overall U.S. manufacturing output almost doubled.

While productivity for the U.S. economy as a whole increased by 53%, manufacturing productivity rose 109%. Now we're on the cusp of another, more potent revolution powered by a highly developed form of silicon—the Age of the Supercomputer.

Let the games begin.

Dave Turek is the executive in charge of supercomputer development for IBM. He was a key designer of the IBM line of supercomputers which included Deep Blue, world chess champion, retired. Turek is a member of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness High Performance Computing Advisory Committee.