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
Cryptology and simulations mostly. And it’s less a “we need a supercomputer” as it’s “it’s nice to have one”.
For most of them, it’s not like they run one problem over a long time, but people book time on it. So instead of many people using medium sized computers to run their complex code over weeks/months/years, instead they book some smaller time on a super computer.
Often times you come up with a model that you want to test, let’s say for weather predictions. It’s complex and would take months to run on a normal pc. Instead, you run it for a few hours on a super computer, look at the results, compare them to real world results and then adjust your model accordingly, run it again a few days/weeks later and so on and so on. This is done for lots of different complex mathematical models for all sorts of different areas.
Also, if you are doing crypto, it’s usually something that you don’t need all the time, but when you need it, you don’t have months or years to wait for the results
Latest Answers