This week Google announced it was allocating one billion computing hours to help researchers tackle the world’s biggest scientific challenges. The grant program, called Google Exacycle for Visiting Faculty, is targeted at the kind of high risk/high reward scientific endeavors that offer the potential for game-changing breakthroughs. Alfred Spector, vice president of research and special initiatives at Google, reveals additional details on his blog:
This program is focused on large-scale, batch computations in research areas such as biomedicine, energy, weather and climate, earth sciences and astronomy. For example, scientists could use massive amounts of computation to simulate how pharmaceuticals interact with proteins in the human body to develop new medicines. Other uses could include simulations to predict weather patterns and analysis of telescope images to understand how the universe changes over time.
The company will allocate computational time to up to 10 large-scale research projects – ones capable of consuming at least 100 million core-hours each. Prominent researchers and postdoctoral scholars from around the world are invited to apply.
The new initiative, which falls under the purview of Google’s University Relations team, aims to stimulate advances in science and engineering. However, the company is already thinking about how the resource could benefit the enterprise community. “In the future,” Spector noted “we think this service could also be useful for businesses in various industries, like biotech, financial services, manufacturing and energy.”
Additional information is available here. Applicants must submit their proposals by May 31, 2011.