IBM is betting that computing power will evolve into a simple utility -- like electricity -- with users buying what they need from a computing grid instead of owning large computers themselves.
To capitalize, IBM is investing US$4 billion to build 50 computer server farms around the world, said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a vice president at IBM's Server Group.
IBM likened the system to computing power-generation plants.
"You'll get computing power and storage capacity -- not from your own computer -- but over the Internet on demand," said Wladawsky-Berger, who also heads Big Blue's Linux operating system group. "You pay for what you use, pretty much the way you do with electric power.''
Governments in Britain and The Netherlands have already hired IBM to help set up national computing grids for science research, Wladawsky-Berger said.
IBM's vision of grid computing is based on networks already in use by NASA and in universities and research labs that link hundreds or thousands of nodes, or machines, which may be scattered around the world. The grids focus the computers' combined power on a single task.
An example is the SETI@home, or Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project, a network that uses donated PC power to analyze radio-telescope data for sounds of alien life.
With practically unlimited data storage and enormous computing power, grid computing could accelerate math-intensive research into a cancer cure, oil exploration, a fuel-efficient engine or climate prediction, said Jonathan Eunice, principal analyst for Illuminata, Inc, a technology researcher in Nashua, New Hampshire.
"This is making grid computing available on an Internet scale," said Eunice. "A large network now is 5,000 nodes. With this, you can open the bidding at 50,000 or hundreds of thousands of nodes."
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