5 benefits of supercomputing that may surprise you

Running a global company with a strong foothold in the high performance computing market, I often talk to customers and scientists who experience the benefits from deploying high performance technology.
Since supercomputing, however, is often used for research-intensive, scientific tasks such as analyzing large amounts of data to solve medical, environmental, infrastructural or a wide variety of other scientific challenges, few people from the public have real working knowledge of how high performance technology effects their lives.
So, what is high performance computing and why should it matter? Across the spectrum of research, high performance computing is the engine and primary tool being used to advance what we value most in society, from curing diseases to protecting us from identity theft.
Supercomputers have incredible processing speeds that can turn basic data into valuable insights in a matter of seconds, minutes or days compared to the years or even decades it would have taken plain human effort.
Here are five real-life applications of supercomputing technology that might surprise you:
Smog control
By running meteorological data through high-power supercomputers, scientists can predict pollution levels in major pollution-prone cities like Beijing. These processes can help identify the source and dispersal pattern of pollutants across the city with a street-level degree of detail days in advance.
Cancer research
Because of the sheer volume of cancer-related data supercomputers can process in a short period of time, medical researchers have the bandwidth to sequence and characterize cancer to an unprecedented depth, enabling a more complete understanding of the mechanisms that lead to genetic instability and ultimately, cancer itself.
Automobile safety ratings
When auto manufacturers subject their vehicles to safety testing, a large portion of a vehicle’s safety rating is based on complex computer-generated scenarios, where supercomputers crunch equations involving hundreds of different variables. These computer-generated scenarios, along with data taken from the crash tests themselves, is analyzed to determine safety ratings.
Fraud protection
From thwarting mail to financial transaction fraud, supercomputing plays a role in fraud protection. For example, PayPal processes more than 13 million financial transactions a day and deployed supercomputers to ensure fraud was caught early. In the first year, supercomputers analyzed PayPal’s big data and identified $710 million in fraud that would have otherwise been undetected.
Big rig fuel efficiency
Thanks to supercomputer research, big rig trucks now wear “skirts.” Research done by supercomputers showed that this aerodynamic design reduces drag and increases efficiency enough that operators can save up to $5,000 per truck, per year in fuel costs.

These are just a few of the ways supercomputers touch our everyday lives. In the near future, it is possible that high performance computing will help us shape the questions we will need to ask before we even know what they are as we continue to explore the universe, solve really big problems and work together to better the world we live in.