Japan’s Fugaku Supercomputer Powers Up Drug Discovery, Storm Forecasts
TOKYO– Discovering brand-new drugs and also predicting severe weather is one of the tasks the Japanese-built Fugaku, 1 of the world’s rapid supercomputer, has taken on as its applications broaden.
Fugaku will certainly be at the center of a two-year experimental study research focused on a pharmaceutical development platform. The government-sponsored project, posted in July, was proposed by the Life Intelligence Consortium, an industry-academia collaboration.
The study will include drugmakers, tech companies, and also the government’s Riken research institute. The goal is to offer a service that boosts the efficiency of pharmaceutical development.
The government hopes Japanese drug companies and also startups make use of the service to compete against bigger overseas rivals with deep pockets.
In an additional project, the Japan Meteorological Firm in June started making use of Fugaku to forecast “training” sensations or lines of storms that can bring downpour to specific areas.
The computer calculates the odds of such storms emerging based on such data as water vapor levels, air temperature, and also atmospheric pressure. It is currently able to accurately predict about one in four, according to the agency.
Challenges remain. Nevertheless, “the range of applications has started growing,” said the head of the computational science office at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Innovation.
With more than 100 billion yen ($750 million) in public funds poured into Fugaku– along with lessons learned from its predecessor, the K supercomputer, it is imperative for Japan to make maximum use of the supercomputer.
The machine was developed with practical usage in mind from the outset, with hardware and also applications designed in coordination with each other.
Fugaku has led twice-yearly global rankings of supercomputers 4 times in a row since 2020, demonstrating its ability to handle artificial intelligence, simulations, and big data.
While the K was used by around 200 companies over roughly seven years, Fugaku already had around 150 users since March, about a year after it began operations, in a wide range of industries from pharmaceuticals to materials.
Supercomputers are used widely by tech companies overseas to power machine translation, search engines as well as even more. Many point out that Japan is wasting Fugaku’s potential by essentially limiting its usage to research.
The ministry announced on July 26 the selection of a research group on computing in the post-Fugaku era. The team will undoubtedly be required to balance embracing quantum computing and various other next-generation technologies and protecting exclusive Japanese know-how.
“We should not be bound by precedent and think strategically about what we need in a brand-new flagship system,” the head of the computational science office said. Diverse data collected through Fugaku’s operations will be critical to developing new supercomputers amid growing questions about the purpose of pursuing faster processing speeds.
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