Computing From Weather to Warcraft

Description

Price drops are allowing more corporations to buy supercomputers for everything from processing movie graphics to searching for oil.

For years, Western governments have used supercomputers to model weapons of nuclear war. Now a company in China uses the powerful machines to tend the fantasy realms of World of Warcraft.

Just 18 months ago, China and India lacked a single system among the 25 fastest in the world. But on the latest list of the 500 fastest computers, released Monday, China nailed the No. 10 spot, standing as the only nation besides the United States in the top 10. India, meanwhile, had the 13th-fastest machine, beating Japan, a longtime leader.

For years, some of the fastest machines in China have belonged to The9, a video game developer that owns the local distribution rights to Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft franchise. Earlier this year, The9 boasted of hosting more than one million World of Warcraft players online at the same time. To support the complex calculations required to create the game’s graphics, The9 owns more than 10 supercomputer systems.

The list of China’s fastest computers is also filled with systems owned by oil and gas companies, financial firms, research groups and other media companies.

Of all the new entrants to the supercomputing race, China appears the most focused. The government has spent a vast amount of money building out its computing infrastructure, hoping to improve science and industry.

New Zealand is the leader in terms of computing capacity per capita, thanks to Weta Digital, a visual-effects company whose founders include the movie director Peter Jackson. Weta, based in the New Zealand capital, Wellington, operates four of the fastest machines on the planet for its work on film franchises like “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Fantastic Four.” Weta also rents out space on its systems to local research labs.

And, of course, there remains a prominent place for machines that can cost more than $100 million and take care of the United States government’s most secret jobs. The current fastest computer in the world is operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which uses it to perform classified military work.

Original URL

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/technology/business-computing/18super.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/technology/business-computing/18super.html