Getting to the Moon via the Cloud

Very high performance supercomputing on the cloud is adding to the ability to research, design, simulate, test, manufacture, deliver.

Going to the Moon via the Cloud

The New York Times, Craig S. Smith, May 25, 2021

The wide availability of high-performance computing accessed through the cloud is fostering creativity worldwide, allowing the Firefly Aerospace startup, for example, to build a rocket for lunar flights using high-performance computing simulations. Although the latest supercomputers can run 1 quadrillion calculations per second, they are prohibitively expensive and have huge space and power needs; less powerful but more nimble networked computer clusters can nearly equal supercomputers' capabilities. Moreover, most cloud computing firms supply access to high-performance computing hardware with more versatility than supercomputers. High-performance cloud computing company Rescale estimates roughly 12% of such computing is currently cloud-based, but that number—approximately $5.3 billion—is expanding 25% annually. Cloud services are growing increasingly popular among research and development groups and applied science fields, amid spiking demand for computing resources.