Early in the next decade, the first computers capable of at least one quintillion calculations per second will come online. That’s a one followed by 18 zeroes, or what scientists call "exascale" machines.

These will be machines with one billion processing cores. Thing is, we don’t have computer codes that can actually use all that power efficiently — power that has the potential to unlock all kinds of new knowledge.

Polo Chau and Edmond Chow, associate professors in the School of Computational Science and Engineering, are team members on a new $2.8 million project to make use of all those processors to study the interactions of atoms using quantum mechanics.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the four-year study — if successful — will mean scientists can study and understand chemical systems that include up to 10 million atoms.

Phanish Suryanarayana in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering is the team leader. More details about the project are included in an original story on the School of CEE website.