Several years ago, it seemed that only forward-thinking research universities were wetting their feet in grid computing — the practice of interlinking desktop machines to get them to perform large-scale number-crunching. But as the Chicago Tribune points out, grid computing has now caught on with businesses too.
Companies in the pharmaceutical and aerospace industries have already established their own research grids, and one technology-research firm predicts that almost $25-billion will be spent annually on grid computing within five years. In the meantime, humanitarian research projects using the technology continue to grow: The World Community Grid, a project that puts idle PC’s to work on medical-research endeavors, now boasts more than 245,000 volunteer participants. —Brock Read
