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Originally Posted by Beestie
Thing, is the problem nowadays is not computing speed. The comuters are way ahead of the software so the interesting question is what apps will be developed that take advantage of the new ability. Leave it to gaming to push the envelope.
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In some ways, software has not yet been able to use computer hardware abilities. For example, software is still too linear making massively parallel processing difficult. However one could argue that the computer hardware has not yet been developed to make effective massive parallel processing possible.
Furthermore, the largest impediment to accurately predicting weather is the processing speed. By the time computers have made a prediction, the weather has already happened. So here is an example of software well ahead of what hardware can accomplish.
A major worry of the supercomputer industry is that virtually all recent advantages have come from stunning speed increases in microprocessors. Now that transistors are constructed with as little as three atom thickenesses, then faster microprocessors may not be forthcoming. IOW the super computer business is worried that their major speed accomplishements may soon diminish to a crawl. As we should all know, most super computing is now performed with literally thousands of interconnected microprocessors.
For the most part, software literally consumes most every advantage created by hardware. Hardware tends to be the limiting factor in the computer industry. This could change if the sofware industry created some massive new breakthrough technology. But that appears neither to be expected nor does the industry have a reputation for such spectaculor breakthroughs. IOW software simply consumes every new Pentaflop we give it as fast as we can provide it.