Renting supercomputers to increase economic development

Submitted by acohill on Tue, 04/14/2009 - 08:27

As far back as 2004 I wrote about the potential to use supercomputers as an economic development tool. A few universities in the U.S. have made supercomputer time available as a fee, and New Mexico is probably farthest along, with an ambitious and visionary statewide project to make supercomputing capacity available throughout the state. Meanwhile, a firm in India is commercializing supercomputer access. As regional and municipal broadband projects like nDanville, The Wired Road, and the Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband project bring high performance fiber to most businesses, it becomes relatively straightforward to put a supercomputer on the network and offer it as a service for hire by the hour or by the job. A region with a fiber network and supercomputer services would have a substantial economic development advantage.