News Computing net promises vast power

A short piece on Grid computing from the Beeb:

Scientists are currently constructing the world's largest particle accelerator.

Its aim is to simulate the big bang that created the universe.

When it is ready in 2007 it will run under the Swiss countryside in a huge circle.

The particles fired down its length will generate enough data in a year to fill a pile of CDs the size of the Eiffel Tower.

What to do with that data and how to share it with scientists around the world is the essence of the Grid, the name given to the international network of supercomputers that promises to revolutionise not just the way we use the internet, but computing itself.

For now the Grid is composed of noisy, air-conditioned computer centres dotted around the world, full of PCs all linked together to make a giant super-computer.

Scientists are currently limited in what they can do by their own hardware's memory, software and processing power.

Once the Grid is up and running anyone hooked up to it will have all the programs, power and storage they could dream of.

Full story here

 

Reminds me a little of Terminator3

 

Saw this on TV the other day (Discovery Channel I think), it looked pretty impressive what they have built so far.