High-performance problems
When people talk about "high performance computing" or HPC, they're generally talking about supercomputing. Supercomputers are different to computing grids: where grids link computers that are distributed around an institution, country or the world, supercomputers are one giant computer in a single room.
Supercomputers generally deal with computer-centric problems; the secret to solving these probems is "teraflops": as many as possible.
Grid computing allows large computational resources to be combined, helping scientists to tackle problems that cannot be solved on a single system, or to solve problems much more quickly.
Examples of these supercomputing grids are DEISA in Europe or TeraGrid in the U.S.
Typical HPC grid applications include:
- astrophysics (e.g., simulations of a supernova explosion or black hole collision)
- automotive/aerospace industry (e.g., simulations of a car crash or a new airplane design)
- climate modeling (e.g., simulations of a tornado or climate prediction)
- economics (e.g., modeling the world economy)
