Supercomputers – a new priority for Russia
28 July, 2009, 17:22
Russia's government has pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on building supercomputers in Russia in a bid to revolutionize science and technology in the country.
At a Security Council sitting, President Dmitry Medvedev stressed that most supercomputers currently used in the country are produced in the United States, not Russia.
He added that another opportunity for Russia would be to use "grid technologies" linking hundreds of normal computers into one monster computer.
Supercomputers can create digital models of high-tech products like engines or even model human viruses.
Despite some moderate success, Russia is only 15th in the world with regard to its supercomputer technology.
“If we talk seriously, most businessmen and, surely, bureaucrats don't even know what a supercomputer is. To them it's something like those industrial super machines from the 1920s built to catch up with America and to overtake it. So businesses and officials ignore the capabilities of supercomputers even though their application might very often bring a breakthrough,” Dmitry Medvedev said.
The Russian President added that Russia should develop supercomputer technology "not because it is trendy, but because otherwise we won't be able to produce competitive goods which will be perceived correctly by potential buyers."
A “Cyber Tsar” is good thing for providing security for US governmental websites, but substantial oversight on Internet in his hands may lead to increased government surveillance, says cyber crime expert Berin Szoka.
President Barack Obama is set to announce the appointee for a new White House job, a role which is expected to include broad authority on protecting governmental and private computer networks.
No comments:
Post a Comment