Yeah but there's no "computing race" in which countries compete to have more computing power than the next, despite the implication of articles like this that h

Yeah but there's no "computing race" in which countries compete to have more computing power than the next, despite the implication of articles like this that hint such a race would be important. Makes not the slightest difference who has computing power. Its relevant only if you have reason to use it, and even then might be completely pointless. Gave me 100 Cray Y-MP computers and I can't think of a damn thing to do with them. Countries are no different. Giving a country 100Mflops gives it nothing over the next country without 100Mflops. BUT what I would absolutely say is true is that politicians - those great scum suckers at the bottom of the human pyramid - are highly likely to believe that it is VERY important that a country does not get left behind in its supercomputing power. Fuckwits. This is the sort of article that would send politicians racing to spend government money on state run supercomputing facilities which do..... nothing of any REAL value.