Supercomputing

Just over two years ago, Tokyo forced Washington to eat crow. A supercomputer funded by the Japanese government trounced America's mightiest computer. In fact, the Japanese machine, called Earth Simulator, packed more number-crunching speed than the top 20 U.S. supercomputers combined.

For years, some U.S. supercomputing gurus had been warning that Washington's support of high-performance computing was too narrowly focused on the needs of the Pentagon's nuclear-weapons programs. Even acknowledging the U.S. strength in software, they warned that scientific research was being hobbled because U.S. supers were not designed to solve the really tough issues facing civilian scientists and engineers. Earth Simulator, built by Japan's NEC Corp. (NIPNY ), was proof positive of just how far behind the U.S. had fallen in scientific supercomputing.