The democratization of supercomputing

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Martin Banks has a great piece on a good use for the Top500 list: as a lens through which to observe the democratization of supercomputing.

This is a theme I’ve talked about much over the past several years, and it’s one of the reasons that (as a dyed-in-the-wool big iron biggot) I’m still excited about the entry of Microsoft into our business.

But the more interesting results could be seen further down the list, and in the surrounding statistics. What they point to is that High Performance Computing (HPC) has suddenly reached the tipping point where it stops being an esoteric corner occupied by scientists and propeller heads and is about to move towards the mainstream of computing.

It’s a great article. If you’re interested in the future of innovation in our society give it a read.

[Note: this post originally, and incorrectly, attributed The Register’s article to Ashlee Vance. It’s actually a piece by Martin Banks. Apologies, Martin.]