IBM is trying to create the processing power of 1 billion desktops… In one machine… To handle the data flow from the Square Kilometer Array telescope project.

Never mind how they’re going to store the firehose of information in the second place, file this under digital crazy.

From Computerworld, edited and remixed:

The telescope, 50 times more sensitive than current instruments, will use approximately 3,600 antennae spread over thousands of kilometres to peer into deep space [and will] will capture data… [on] the origins of the universe around 13 billion years ago.

“Moving that much data around is a challenging problem,” [said, Glenn Wightwick, director of IBM's Australia Development Laboratory]… “It is a really interesting challenge.”

Interesting? Indeed.