What kind of humongous tasks do supercomputers do? What type of mathematical models can be so complex that it requires a computer close to $1B?

Question

What kind of humongous tasks do supercomputers do? What type of mathematical models can be so complex that it requires a computer close to $1B?

In: 244

Answer 1

Traditionally – computational fluid dynamics, weather, “high energy physics”

More recently – computational chemistry, comp life sciences like protein folding and DNA analysis.

Computer generated imagery. Machine learning.

Fun fact – most of the non-NSA DoD HPC is….. classified weather forecasting. They use a lot of the same programs as the weather services, but the exact areas that they are focusing on, are the secret.

For example, “why are you calculating the flying weather over a specific city in Ukraine for tomorrow night?” or “Why are you calculating the wave height on a specific beach in area XXX on the next moonless night?”