Given that this is supercomputer time we’re talking about, likely from a national computing center, I doubt they paid in cash or grant money for it. They probab

Given that this is supercomputer time we’re talking about, likely from a national computing center, I doubt they paid in cash or grant money for it. They probably have X amount of time pre-allotted, or managed to apply for some more. Then translated the compute spent on the problem to a dollar amount to illustrate the rough amount of resources spent.