The Grid could be the next big thing in information and communications technology.

Grid Near You

First the Web. Now the Grid.
CERN, the European particle physics laboratory located near Geneva, Switzerland, bills itself as the place where the "web was born". And for good reason. It was there in 1989 that CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web by melding the technologies of personal computers, computer networking and hypertext into an easy-to-use global information system that has revolutionised the way in which the world communicates.
Now CERN has emerged as a major player in a second revolution in electronic information technologies---a revolution that scientists have dubbed the Grid.
Like the Web, the Grid is being created to meet the growing demand for information sharing among scientists working in research centres and laboratories across the globe.
And like the Web, the Grid may ultimately transform how people worldwide use and share information in a broad variety of human endeavours.
What's the difference between the Web and the Grid? Well, it's equivalent to the difference between your living room bookshelf with one hundred or so novels and travel guides, and the US Library of Congress with nearly 60 million manuscripts and 30 million books.
Both store information and both provide access to it. But one stores a lot more information and provides much broader access than the other, although usually under a vast array of administrative frameworks that determine who can get in and who can't. After all, information may want to be free but it is expensive to produce, and those who produce it usually want to be rewarded for their efforts. Think publishers. Think broadcasters. Think Google. Think Grid.
It's for this reason that the Grid may hold a great deal more information than the Web and yet be far less accessible. You will likely need a key---an authorised computer and password---to see any of the information it contains.
In the world of science, the Grid is designed to link a large number of networked computers across the world, offering scientists the potential to seamlessly share huge computational resources, including huge databases. Indeed one of the primary reasons that CERN is leading the development of the Grid is to create the necessary computing infrastructure for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest scientific instrument, which will begin its exploration into the fundamental properties of subatomic particles and forces next year. Officials anticipate that LHC experiments will generate some 15 million gigabytes of data each year. Some 6000 scientists and 50,000 computers are expected to be 'gridded' through the project.
Exponential increases in the quantity of data that can be automatically stored, retrieved and analysed worldwide will likely lead to qualitative changes in the way that scientists conduct research. It will certainly allow for more (and more complex) questions to be reasonably analysed, and will speed up the time in which solutions to problems can be formulated.
Like the Web, which began as a tool used exclusively by physicists, the use of the Grid will likely spread rapidly from the physics community to other scientific fields, including climate modelling, earthquake risk assessment, protein folding, and even the behaviour of financial markets.
Indeed the behaviour of financial markets was the theme of a workshop, appropriately titled "Grid in Finance in 2006," held in Palermo, Italy, in early February. ICTP, which coorganised the event with the University of Palermo, was represented by Alvise Nobile, a Centre staff scientist, and Stefano Cozzini, a Centre consultant. Sponsoring organisations included Avanade Italy, IBM Italia and Fondazione Banco di Sicilia.
The meeting was the first of its kind. And while the uses of the Grid in finance are still in their infancy, the enthusiasm displayed by those in attendance---representatives from universities, research centres, financial institutions, software companies and governmental agencies, including the European Commission---reflected the growing interest in this emerging information technology. Will the Grid allow financial analysts to better understand investor behaviour? Will it enable experts to better anticipate changes in the financial markets? Will it allow experts to more precisely forecast both subtle and abrupt changes in national and global financial systems?
The use of the Grid at CERN may well unlock the secrets of the early universe. The use of the Grid to better understand financial behaviour, as discussed at the ICTP-cosponsored conference in Palermo, may well shed equally revealing light on more mundane pocketbook issues. Either way, the Grid will likely be coming your way soon. But you'll need a key to get in.

Back to Contents Forward to Commentary

Home