IBM: Outcomputing Its Competitors (some medical relation)

[Guest guest]

Hi:

Yes I know I keep posting these computer articles (by the way I

studied computer programming). However, these magnificant machines

are helping to find cures for CMT, and just by learning more about the

human body as a whole. Problems that could take decades to solve are

now solved in days, weeks, months. Although these super computers

dont run the net, powerful computers do run the net allowing us to

gather and learn about CMT. We couldn't 10 years ago!!

Take care

IBM: Outcomputing Its Competitors

http://www.fool.com/news/mft/2005/mft05061727.htm

By Jack Uldrich

06/17/2005

Earlier this week, IBM(NYSE: IBM) unveiled its latest and greatest

supercomputer. The 91-teraflop monster, dubbed " Blue Gene, " is

capable of cranking out a mind-blowing 91 trillion calculations per

second. This ultra-powerful -- yet remarkably affordable, practical,

and accessible -- computing tool is likely to give IBM a significant

competitive advantage over competitors such as Affymetrix(Nasdaq:

AFFX), Intel(Nasdaq: INTC), and General Electric(NYSE: GE) in the life

sciences, information technology, and material sciences sectors.

The first area where the new computer will prove useful is in modeling

how proteins fold. A number of illnesses, including Alzheimer's

disease, Parkinson's disease, cystic fibrosis, mad-cow disease, and

sickle-cell anemia, are all thought to be related to improperly

folding proteins. It's expected that by better understanding the

processes through which these diseases occur, IBM researchers will

find new and better ways to treat them. Ultimately, the researchers

hope to prevent the diseases from ever occurring. What it means for

IBM is that the company could become not just a bigger player in the

life sciences sector but quite possibly the dominant one.

But the supercomputer's utility is by no means limited to examining

protein folding. Its raw processing power can be applied to any field

or discipline that requires massive crunching power, including

financial risk modeling, climate modeling, seismic exploration, and

automotive design, to name just a few. As a result of this explosion

of new data and information, IBM's consulting business is likely to

reap a lot of new contracts from companies hoping to profit from the

new findings.

The computer should also strengthen IBM's already strong position in

the burgeoning field of nanotechnology. By reducing the time it takes

to run simulations from months or weeks down to mere days or hours,

Blue Gene holds the potential to exponentially increase our

understanding of the complex fields of materials sciences, quantum

chemistry, and molecular and fluid dynamics. Furthermore, because the

computer is interactive, researchers will be able to make adjustments

on the fly, and that should speed up the time it takes to translate

scientific discoveries into viable commercial products.

In addition to being super-fast, Blue Gene is also scalable.

The benefits derived from it -- and its successors -- will only grow

in the years ahead. In fact, IBM officials are confident that they'll

be able to develop a successor capable of a 1 petaflop performance

level by the end of the decade. That's 1 quadrillion calculations per

second -- 10 times as powerful as Blue Gene.

But the biggest reason Blue Gene is so important is that it

will give IBM the opportunity to use the knowledge it gleans to

develop new products and create better and more practical solutions.

And it's these new products and solutions that will give Big Blue a

decided advantage in the years ahead -- it will allow the company to

outcompete and outcompute its competitors.