Computing power plays a key role in enabling data analytics and machine learning, in cybersecurity, for scientific research, and in military domains like nuclear warhead design and detonation simulation.
Computing also has industrial ramifications, not least due to a relatively small number of players that hold key spots in the value chain. This leads some to argue that the contours of computational power define who has control over and access to the benefits of computer-based technologies like artificial intelligence.
This essay focuses on two complementary segments of computing: high-performance computing (HPC, also known as “supercomputing”), and quantum computing. Both are very distinct in terms of maturity. HPC has been widely used in scientific research, meteorology, the military, finance, and industry since the 1990s. Arguably, a nation’s ability to deploy supercomputers constitutes a form of soft power, as well as being a scientific and national security imperative. Today, a few countries around the globe are engaged in a race to deploy the next level of supercomputers, known as exascale machines. But the field is also currently witnessing a diversification of uses, with new needs stemming from big data applications for industry.
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