High-Performance Computing

An Agenda for the Social Sciences and the Humanities in Canada.

Digital Studies 1(2). 2009.
Abstract: CFI has just announced its financial support for the creation of a national High Performance Computing (HPC) platform, and the formation of a new organization to govern it: Compute Canada. When realized, the platform will afford Canadian scholars with more computational power than they have ever enjoyed before. HPC presents rich research possibilities for Canada's social scientists and humanities (SSH) researchers. Our respective rcrearch communities, however, are not yet prepared to exploit them. This report outlines two possibilities that HPC presents for SSH research, centering on serious computer games and Massive Multi-User Persistent Worlds. It also contains recommended steps for SSHRC and the SSH research community to take in order to exploit them.