Microsoft has launched a new technical computing initiative, dubbed "Modeling the World," in an effort designed to bring supercomputing power and resources to a much wider group of scientists, engineers, and analysts who are working to address some of science's most difficult challenges through modeling and prediction.
According to Microsoft's Bob Muglia, President, Server & Tools Business, "Our goal is to unleash the power of pervasive, accurate, real-time modeling to help people and organizations achieve their objectives and realize their potential. We are bringing together some of the brightest minds in the technical computing community across industry, academia, and science at www.modelingtheworld.com to discuss trends, challenges, and shared opportunities."
The initiative focuses on Microsoft’s three areas of technical computing investment:
- Cloud: Bringing technical computing power to scientists, engineers, and analysts through cloud computing to help ensure processing resources are available whenever they are needed -- reliably, consistently, and quickly. Supercomputing work may emerge as a “killer app” for the cloud.
- Easier, consistent parallel programming: Delivering new tools that will help simplify parallel development from the desktop to the cluster to the cloud.
- Powerful new tools: Developing powerful, easy-to-use technical computing tools that will help significantly speed discovery. This includes working with customers and industry partners on innovative solutions that will bring our technical computing vision to life.
According to Muglia, "New advances provide the foundation for tools and applications that will make technical computing more affordable and accessible where mathematical and computational principles are applied to solve practical problems. One day soon, complicated tasks like building a sophisticated computer model that would typically take a team of advanced software programmers months to build and days to run, will be accomplished in a single afternoon by a scientist, engineer ,or analyst working at the PC on their desktop. And as technology continues to advance, these models will become more complete and accurate in the way they represent the world. This will speed our ability to test new ideas, improve processes, and advance our understanding of systems."
