Look at who's logging supercomputing time these days and you are
likely to get a glimpse of some major innovations on the
horizon. The U.S. Department of Energy announced today it has
just granted the largest award ever of the department's
supercomputing time through it's Innovative and Novel
Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program,
now in it's sixth year. The large award, a total of 1.7 billion
hours distributed over 57 projects, was partially attributed to
the fact that the Energy Department has been expanding its
supercomputing capacity, and, therefore, simply has the means to
grant more time. But it also reflects a growing interest in
using computer modeling now that it has increased in
sophistication, according to the Energy Department. The INCITE
program is somewhat like the lottery in that everyone has a
chance. The Energy Department has an open application process in
which any scientist, whether working in the academic or
commercial world, is welcome to submit a request to win s