> most of the owners of these in various national institutes are shopping for customers to justify their funding What's the evidence for this claim? AFAIK the

> most of the owners of these in various national institutes are shopping for customers to justify their funding What's the evidence for this claim? AFAIK the DoE INCITE awards -- which is how you get allocated time on the big supercomputers -- are quite competitive. Also the supercomputers don't cost billions. Aurora, for example only costs $200 million, and if it lasts as long as its predecessor Mira did, that is $200 million spread over 6 years, which is a pretty small number.