THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 9, 1994 TAG: 9411090322
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Movie stars they are not, but supercomputers are becoming as important to the film industry as bankable, big-name talent. Consider the supercomputer-generated special effects of recent science fiction flicks or action-adventure thrillers.
Then there's virtual design, virtual prototyping and virtual manufacturing. That's not to mention virtual computing or credit-card access to supercomputers over on-line networks.
According to speakers at a four-day conference on high-speed computing that began Tuesday, by the turn of the century cheap, ultrafast supercomputers could become the common money-making tools for much of U.S. business.
``It's pretty clear that what we mean by supercomputing today will be in your TV set in a decade,'' said William J. Camp, director of parallel applications technology at the Minneapolis-based Cray Research, Inc., the world's largest supercomputer company. ``Entertainment will be a driving force. Supercomputers also hold the promise of greatly shortening the manufacturing design-to-production cycle.''
By designing and testing on a computer screen every component of a device or structure before it is built, firms could dramatically reduce development costs. Profits could rise even as consumer costs are reduced.
And because product design would improve, products would last longer and perform better.
``In the shipbuilding industry, we deal with such a huge structure, on the order of 200,000 to 500,000 separate elements,'' said Blaise Montandon , an expert in computer-aided design and manufacturing who works for Newport News Shipbuilding. ``These are pretty large-scale problems. So these techniques would really help, especially on new ship design.''
State-of-the-art supercomputers rely on parallel processing, a method of separating problems into component parts and calculating simultaneous solutions for each piece of the separated problem.
Recently, so-called scalable processors have been introduced, which essentially consist of potent computers-on-a-chip which are yoked together inside a refrigeratorlike device. Costing considerably less than older, larger supercomputers, these scalable processors will likely become ever more affordable as newer versions are introduced.
``Everything is going toward more and more capability, like (having) a human brain sitting on a desk,'' said conference organizer Olaf Storaasli , a senior research scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, which is sponsoring the computer symposium.
``Companies that analyze and model automobile or airplane designs on computers in a short time have a competitive advantage. What this technology does is shorten the time to market,'' he said.
As it scrambles for new customers to replace its traditional but money-poor government and university clients, the supercomputer industry hopes potential private-sector customers will invest in this latest generation of machines.
``It's an industry with a lot of shaking out going on,'' conceded Camp of Cray. ``But the potential for profit is great. Everything will be driven by applications.''
Some 150 are expected to attend the symposium at the Waterside Marriott, which will conclude Friday. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Richard L. Dunston, Staff
Olaf Storaasli, a senior research scientist at the NASA Langley
Research Center...
by CNB