Supercomputing Can Change the World for Good in Cray's Environmental Online Series

One doesn’t necessarily think of supercomputing in a field of green or in ocean waves, but a new series of online videos from Cray with agency partner DNA connects the capabilities of supercomputers to the real-life ways in which computational science and discovery is changing the world for good.

One instance was how Cray supported scientists in their quest to address the hunger crises: Cray’s supercomputers were put to work by Dr. Laura Boykin in the Pawsey Lab in Australia to understand the precise genome of the white fly decimating the Cassava plant in East Africa – a food source for over 800 million people worldwide.

“In these films we are showing what happens when scientists, dreamers, and thinkers keep asking the questions that enable technology to have a profound impact on the world” said Paul Rosien, director, Worldwide Corporate Marketing at Cray. “We are sharing a human side to real world challenges such as preventing famine, extracting energy from the ocean, and more.”

The new initiative from Cray comes at a time when supercomputing technology is being used to address mankind’s most pressing issues, enabling Cray to introduce its role and technology to a broader audience. The documentary-style films are part of a broader branding and marketing effort created by DNA that illustrates the outcomes of combining creativity with computation. It includes a new brand platform built around the idea of “Keep Asking,” that comes to life through the films, a revamped website, new branding and identity work and other marketing channels.

“We saw these stories of people in real life situations using supercomputing technology as an opportunity to highlight the real benefits of Cray’s supercomputers,” explained Noel Nickol, creative director at DNA. “These films speak to the power of this technology to address the big issues our world faces with solutions made possible by the powerful partnership of people and supercomputers.”

As Dr Boykin notes in the film: “We have the tools and the technology to solve food security. So people should not go without food, period. The end goal is to open high-tech labs in East Africa that have high-performance computing with genomic capabilities completely run by East African scientists. We want farmers to have more food. And we want scientists on the African continent to have an equal voice. I’m really trying to make myself obsolete.”

Another film in the series looks at how Carnegie Clean Energy CEO Jonathan Fievez is using supercomputing to explore how ocean waves can be harnessed to provide an ever-giving source of renewable clean energy.  By understanding the physics of how a buoy moves in the ocean and the ways in which that energy can be turned into electricity through a renewable source – the power of ocean waves - Fievez believes he can make a difference in the world.