Will Supercomputers Someday Live Only in the Cloud?

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David Linthicum write that the new public beta of Cluster Compute Eight Extra Large is Amazon AWS is not only most powerful cloud service yet, it may herald the day when supercomputers live only in the Cloud.

I believe that those who vend these computing systems and sell about 20 to 30 a year will find that the cloud becomes a new and more lucrative channel. Perhaps they will support thousands of users on the cloud, an audience that would typically not be able to afford the hardware and software. Moreover, I believe this might be the only model they support in the future, and the cloud could be the only way to access some platform services. That’s a pity for those who want to see the hardware in their own data center, but perhaps that’s not a bad thing.

I’m really not buying into this prediction, myself. Public Clouds for HPC may work for some, but the speed of light will always keep real supercomputers close to home. Read the Full Story.