Global supercomputer basics in advanced test phase

The research team for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in construction at the CERN complex on the French-Swiss border to be operational in 2007, has completed an initial test phase for distributed grid computing that presents concrete capacity for global supercomputing.

The LHC will produce an estimated 15 million gigabytes in its first year, approximately 41,000 gigs per day, that must be analyzed and stored.

A graphical overview of the current grid's layout:

This distributed system provides a proof of concept for large-scale high-throughput grid systems that will extend to the global computing grid in the coming years.

Original article: 'Maiden Flight' for LHC Computing Grid Breaks Gigabyte-per-Second Barrier

As a reminder of what a distributed computing grid can accomplish, sub-atomic precise simulation of physical environments will be achievable. Above 10²⁵ cps of computing power and equivalent fast-access memory and bandwidth, a distributed computing system will be capable of calculating genetic algorithms to build engineering solutions as well as provide a much deeper understanding of the universe's forces. While a largely overlooked knowledge to gain, significant understanding of universal forces will create more economic wealth than all human work through history. Full capacity for nanoengineering, assisted by genetic algorithms simulated in full reality environments, will allow to build the most complex object at insignificant costs compared to industrial processes. The mere capacity of full molecular nanotechnology engineering (MNE) will increase the speed of evolution in information technology hardware, by making obsolete the currently required need to build multi-billion dollar factories. This increase will accelerate even further the efficiency of MNE, which will allow faster computation, storage and bandwidth.

Economic cycles will accelerate with the evolution of scientific discovery, evening out most current economic problems. Intelligent monetary and financial policies will remain a requirement for any economic policy, but an economy inevitably responds to the law of accelerating returns as soon as knowledge becomes the major constituant of its economic throuput. As we have shown in a previous post, Estimating future human economic growth, humankind will reach the knee of the exponential curve around 2010. This growth will largely be driven by limited nanotechnology and more intelligent software systems that will improve the efficiency of all work and processes.

Artificial intelligences will be capable of predicting social behavior from statistically distributed personalities among the simulated minds. It will make achievable an understanding of the deep mechanics of economics and most social behaviors. It would not even need to identify a single live citizen by using artificial simulated environments.