Supercomputers: All the World’s Scientific Instruments Rolled into One

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In this video, the PRACE Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe presents an uplifting overview of HPC and how it is being used to tackle the toughest challenges facing society.

High performance computing is like all the world’s scientific instruments combined into one,” says Professor Richard Kenway from the University of Edinburgh. “So, it’s a telescope that enables us to view the entire universe. It’s a microscope or a particle accelerator that enables us to explore the quantum world of the very small. It’s a reactor that enables us to study plasmas and what’s going on in the interior of stars. And it’s even a time machine that enables us to recreate the past or to predict what is going to happen in the future. Almost all of the major challenges that society faces, whether it’s preserving our environment, improving our healthcare, or rebuilding our economy, are underpinned in some way or another by high performance computing.”

This is great stuff and should be useful for anyone who seeks to champion the importance of supercomputing.