The collective, drawing on supercomputer systems from five U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories, now has at least 17 active projects, using machines to radically reduce the time needed for science and research, which experts say includes epidemiology and molecular modeling.
"These experiments would take years to complete if worked by hand, or months if handled on slower, traditional computing platforms," Dario Gil, Director of IBM Research, wrote in a blog post this month detailing how his division was contributing to the project.
According to Gil, the work already showed signs of promise after the Summit supercomputer was used by researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee.
"[Researchers screened] 8,000 compounds to find those that are most likely to bind to the main 'spike' protein of the coronavirus, rendering it unable to infect host cells," he noted.
"They were able to recommend the 77 promising small-molecule drug compounds that could now be experimentally tested. This is the power of accelerating discovery through computation."
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"These experiments would take years to complete if worked by hand, or months if handled on slower, traditional computing platforms," Dario Gil, Director of IBM Research, wrote in a blog post this month detailing how his division was contributing to the project.
According to Gil, the work already showed signs of promise after the Summit supercomputer was used by researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee.
"[Researchers screened] 8,000 compounds to find those that are most likely to bind to the main 'spike' protein of the coronavirus, rendering it unable to infect host cells," he noted.
"They were able to recommend the 77 promising small-molecule drug compounds that could now be experimentally tested. This is the power of accelerating discovery through computation."
How Supercomputers Are Being Used to Win the Fight Against Coronavirus
Powerful computers capable of ingesting and analyzing vast amounts of raw data are helping to map, track and analyze COVID-19 as the novel coronavirus continues to spread globally.
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