Supercomputers join in the battle against COVID-19

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As you might imagine, technology is playing a key role as scientists scramble to find vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus. 

Now, some of them are calling in the big guns, supercomputers, to help do the massive number crunching required. 

Many facets of COVID-19 remain a mystery — but scientists know that ​spiked proteins of the coronavirus are what bind to human cells, allowing the virus’ genetic material to sneak inside.

So the protein engineer is turning to a huge computer to do battle with it. In March, the White House launched the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium to give researchers access to the world’s most powerful supercomputers to help fight the virus. In 2016, we saw the Yellowstone machine up close in Wyoming. It’s since been replaced by Cheyenne, which does even quicker calculations.