Many say the cloud is a revolutionary technology, but what do they mean? Recent news proves it goes further than simply streamlining data storage. A Harvard scientist has used Google’s cloud platform to replicate a supercomputer for use in a heart disease study.
If scaled for other purposes, this could ease the shortage of powerful computing resources and further develop the cloud’s place in a wide variety of industries. Not to mention, the benefit of this particular discovery for the healthcare industry and those suffering from heart disease.
The Harvard Study
The study would ordinarily have required a huge amount of computing power. But by cloning the capabilities of a supercomputer on the cloud, the researchers were able to simulate a therapy that dissolves blood clots and tumour cells with greater ease and efficiency. This could mean massive cost savings for this type of work in future and of course, makes the therapy much more viable.
Harvard professor Petros Koumoutsakos said…
“The big problem that we had (was) we could run one simulation using a full scale supercomputer”
The Supercomputer Shortage
There are only a handful of supercomputers in the whole of the US. This has caused major delays, with all the scientific researchers only able to use a few machines.
As a result of this shortage, many companies along with scientific researchers are turning to the cloud to fill the gap. Of course, cloud platforms are generally designed for small computing tasks, nothing compared to what is required for something like the Harvard study. But this could soon change.
Bill Magro, chief high performance computing technologist at Google Cloud said…
“Folks are realizing the potential for cloud to solve problems and technical scientific engineering computing to really unlock productivity and get to better answers, better insights, faster”
Conclusion
The Harvard study marks a new step in the development of cloud computing as an embedded feature of all kinds of industries. It demonstrates the cloud’s potential for revolutionising efficiency in ways we hadn’t quite expected. Where do you think the cloud will go next?
