U.S. Trails Europe in Grid Computing Race

Many companies sometimes find that the supercomputing power they need is right in front of their eyes. For example, Novartis, a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company, found their supercomputing power when they linked the thousands of PC's that were being used in its offices together.

Though Novartis used American software and technology in their efforts to boost their supercomputing efficiency, the idea of Grid computing has been circulating in the European Union faster than in the United States, according to scientists.

Grid computing is able to handle extremely complex tasks because the unused power of individual computers is harnessed by connecting them together. The appeal for scientists and corporations lies in the fact that grid work groups can cover large cities and, in effect, the entire world.

Grid computing is considered a new development in the transfer of computing technology ideas. Various new technologies can be established anywhere in the world thanks to the ever accelerating Internet, and this often overrides typical American leadership in the area.

Cultural and political differences are major influences on the race to Grid development. American universities and companies, while staying ahead of the game in their innovation and development, sometimes fall behind because of competitive computing and telecommunications standards. In addition, the U.S. government often acts ambivalently in regard to creating industrial policies.

European governments, however, implement unified standards and focus on technologies that will most benefit the economy, which usually puts them at the front of the race. Still, this lead can sometimes push them too far ahead of the market and ruin chances of a desirable payoff.

For example, cell phone network technology was invented in the United States, but European digital cellular networks currently offer better service. On the other hand, Euro telecom companies have wasted billions of dollars on 3-G cell service, which has garnered little interest from consumers. But Europe, with its Grid computing, could have an 18-month lead in its novel deployment of technology, say European scientists and officials.

The United States is starting to recognize their trailing position due to a February report from the National Science Foundation Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure which urges them to deepen their interest in grid computing. The European Union, however, is already set to deploy two new initiatives early next year.

The first of the two initiatives is called Enabling Grids for E-science in Europe, and it seeks to build the largest international grid infrastructure to date. The goal is to have a grid infrastructure running in over 70 European institutions, providing 24-hour service. The computing power would rival that of 20,000 powerful personal computers.

France's National Center for Scientific Research is heading the other initiative, which involves connecting seven supercomputers in Europe at optical network speeds. Such a project would rival the U.S.'s efforts to connect major supercomputer sites with their TeraGrid initiative.

Europe's strategy to become a dynamic and creative environment for grid infrastructures appears to be moving toward commercial grid production.

Europe's research-oriented organizations have made significant advances in early grid development, leaving the door wide open for vendors like IBM and Sun to push progress even further.

In addition, the E.U. has a more organized layout to plan a networking infrastructure than the United States does. While Europe already has a 5 to 10 year strategic plan for future grid implementation, the U.S. is slowed by thick government bureaucracy.

Hewlett-Packard, for instance, has joined British BAE Systems, along with various European institutes for higher learning and research, to utilize grid computing for collaborative simulation and visualization in aerospace and defense design.

The project, introduced to solve grid security problems, is being partially funded by Britain's Department of Trade and Industry.

The British government alone is planning to spend $335 million on grid computing implementation from 2000 to 2005. While the U.S. seems to be leading in its creation of the technology, there is an overwhelming amount of investment in the European Union.

Private sector partners also contribute to the development of grid computing in the E.U. as well. The European Union looks to spend $428 million from 2002 to 2006 on upgrades for their infrastructure.

Many grid proponents believe that the implementation of grid infrastructures has the potential to boost the economy. The Rural Internet Access Authority, in North Carolina, released a study which proposed that deploying an advanced computing grid in the state would add $10 billion and 24,000 jobs through 2010.

The U.S. has made significant advances in implementing grids for scientific applications like earthquake study, however. Also, the TeraGrid project is hoped to showcase computing speeds of up to 20 trillion mathematical operations a second, as well as the ability to store a petabyte of information. A petabyte is roughly equal to the storage space of 25,000 standard personal computer hard drives.

The TeraGrid project surpasses Europe's similar effort, Openlab, which is not expected to reach the same specifications until 2005.

Yet Europe leads in their efforts to create faster optical networks. An Internet 2 Land Speed Record was recently set by CERN-Caltech team when they transferred 1.1 trillion bytes of data in less than 30 minutes. Such speeds were hardly even imagined last year.

Now preparing to transfer 40 gigabits per second, the Europeans rely on unused high speed fiber optic infrastructure known as dark fiber. The test beds will allow scientists and businesses to share information and computer infrastructure in real time.

Europe is seeking to collaborate with the U.S., however. American scientists have trouble helping Europe with running large applications simply because Euro research programs do not provide financial support for American participation. The E.U. has since turned to the NSF for contribution assistance. Though talks are still being conducted, many hope that a collaboration between the E.U. and U.S. will lead to a worldwide infrastructure that could eventually help solve global concerns.

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