BlackBook is a mixed-integer programming model implemented in OPL/CPLEX (used to be an ILOG product until IBM bought them). So all this stuff about classifiers

BlackBook is a mixed-integer programming model implemented in OPL/CPLEX (used to be an ILOG product until IBM bought them). So all this stuff about classifiers is off base. This isn't a predictive model -- it's a math program. I don't know how they got that quintillion number. Could be that many "variations" instead. But the dimensions are things like time, varietals, locations, what you're gonna store/blend, that kind of thing. You end up with decision variables that are indexed in multiple dimensions and that creates the variable explosion they're alluding to. CPLEX is awesome at handling huge amounts of decision variables so long as the problem stays mixed-integer, and that's what this is.