Supercomputers in Canberra and Perth power the analysis and modelling that decision-makers rely on in national crises.
It takes a tremendous amount of computing power to simulate all the components and behaviors of viruses and cells.
Copyright: Thomas Splettstoesser scistyle.com
Scanning through billions of chemicals to find a few potential drugs for treating COVID-19 requires computers that harness together thousands of processors.
Quantum computing would signify an immense shift in processing power, but how close are we to achieving it?
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A paper published by researchers at Google claimed that they had achieved computing quantum supremacy, but leaks and counter-claims have created a stir.
Close-up on the circuitry of the Vesuvius quantum computer, announced in 2012 by the Canadian firm D-Wave Systems.
Steve Jurvetson/Flickr
On October 23 Google announced that it built a quantum computer thousands of times faster than classic computers. This could have immense impacts on finance, cryptography and other fields.
A dilution refrigerator used to test quantum processor prototypes.
Agnese Abrusci
IBM's Watson watched hundreds of horror movie trailers and then created its own for the new film Morgan.
The Titan Supercomputer, in the US, has allowed scientists to study ice formation on wind turbines at a molecular level.
Wikimedia/Oak Ridge National LaboratoryOak Ridge National Laboratory
Developing new technologies requires time-consuming, expensive and even dangerous experiments. But now we can carry out many experiments entirely on computers using modelling.
Computers are coming up with proofs in mathematics that are almost impossible for a human to check.
Shutterstock/Fernando Batista
Moaning about weather forecasts is almost an Australian national pastime. But weather predictions have improved a lot, and with a new satellite and supercomputer, they are about to get even more reliable.
Engineer on the prowl between the big black boxes.
University of Edinburgh
A new supercomputer, called ARCHER, has recently been launched. ARCHER is a Cray XC30, funded by EPSRC and NERC. It is more than three times more powerful than its predecessor, HECToR, and is hosted by…
Researchers in Japan have used the powerful K computer, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, to simulate the complex neural structure of our brain. Using a popular suite of neuron simulating software…
Everything we see around us could be little more than bits in a giant supercomputer.
petertandlund
As a cosmologist, I often carry around a universe or two in my pocket. Not entire, infinitely large universes, but maybe a few billion light years or so across. Enough to be interesting. Of course, these…
Programmers will find ways to harness the massively distributed global internet.
Night Owl City
Today I’m annoyed at Facebook. Among the amazingly witty and touching postings from my friends and Amnesty International are “pages you might like” and advertisements for things I don’t need, especially…
Supercomputers that can analyse major data sets will one day be superseded by quantum computing.
AAP