It is used to search for extraterrestrial life. It helps to detect breast cancer and oil fields. It is tipped to change the way we will work in future.
It is called "grid computing" and is billed as the next phase of the ever-developing information technology revolution.
Called by some the third great leap after the Internet and World Wide Web, grid or distributed computing links hundreds or thousands of computers and could one day provide vast computing power or data storage to companies who pay only for what they consume.
On the Internet, computers hook up to exchange information in all kinds of forms, while on a grid they join forces to accomplish a given task.
A pioneer has been the project called SETIAhome, a never-ending search which began in the 1990s for extraterrestrial signals. The program harnesses idle computers in homes, businesses and universities to sift through data picked up by radiotelescopes.
Life sciences, including earth observation, are already leading applications of grid computing. In Britain, the IBM/Oxford eDiamond project, a part of the government's e-Science initiative, helps doctors detect and treat breast cancer, with five hospitals or screening centers sharing a grid in what experts call a major breakthrough. That number could increase to 92 cancer hospitals across Britain, a potential shot in the arm for the country's National Health Service.
Another IBM/Oxford University project with software groups United Devices and Accelerys along with the European biotech firm EvotechOAI, could use two million computers to develop a new drug against smallpox, a feared bioterror weapon.
"[Grid computing] will change our way of working, it will be a qualitative change," said Guy Wormser, deputy science director at the French nuclear and particle physics institute known as IN2P3.
The institute together with IBM are working with others to link nuclear research centers in Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland, as well as the European Space Agency. To make grids widely available, computer processors, networks, software, diagnostic tools and standards must first be integrated so a company can submit a job and get it done without caring whether that happens in Cape Town, Copenhagen or Kowloon.
IBM has begun to "gridify" a European oil group's information technology sites in Asia, Europe and the US. Seismic research and reservoir simulations are under similar development.
IBM has also provided a bank with a system to calculate its risk position in financial markets every 15 minutes.
The aptly-named Monte Carlo simulation provides an ace in the hole against rivals that can only identify such risk every 12 or 24 hours.
Smaller banks could combine the power of idle workstations, typically used at only 15 percent to 20 percent of their capacity, to build a system that Wormser says might multiply by up to five times the bank's internal resources.
The aerospace and automotive industries are seen as potential grid users as they outsource data-intensive tasks such as design work requiring modeling or simulations.
The French institute IN2P3 needs grid technology to crunch data that will begin pouring in from a nuclear collider at CERN, the European Institute for particle physics in Geneva that created the World Wide Web.
But deputy director Wormser says they want to work with small biotechnology companies to test the system, since drug development and genomic research requires just the kind of powerful, yet flexible service a grid is designed for.
When will it change the way we work?
Not so fast
Gartner Research analyst Roger Fulton said "it's going to be rather longer than everybody would like," in part because companies are currently focused on cutting costs, not on investments.
Sharing vast power and data storage implies risk as well, and Wormser says that while certification authorities will be established and electronic passports issued to users, systems cannot lock out hackers but must work to contain them.
Even projects between well-respected scientific institutes are not immune, since, as he notes: "If you lend your car to a friend he can run it into a wall."
That has not stopped grid technology from plunging into the perilous world of online games, however.
Butterfly.net is said to have up to 300,000 users roaming simultaneously through virtual environments, while the site itself claims it can "support an unlimited number of players within the same game."
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is