Lashing together multiple processors to create a virtual supercomputer is a popular parlor trick in academia and government research.

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You need only a fraction of that if you can gin up a virtual supercomputer from thousands of cheap computers.

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The result: a virtual supercomputer capable of crunching 6 trillion floating point operations per second, or 6 teraflops, equivalent to one of the ten most powerful computers in the world.

FORBES: Sharing Power

Google, by its configuration of hundreds of thousands of commodity servers into a massive, parallel, virtual supercomputer used for search, has worked out, by intent or accident, the enterprise computer platform of the future.

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The project will use supercomputer-based models and simulations to reconstruct a virtual human brain to develop new treatments for neurological conditions.

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