Grid Computing, Denser Storage In the Foreground

The Armonk, N.Y.-based company, which is using nanotechnology to develop eventual replacements for materials like silicon, expects to begin testing next year Millipede, an ultra-dense storage technology, the executive said.

The Millipede technology will provide storage instruments that will be 25 times more dense than today's most advanced magnetic storage, Donofrio said.

IBM aims to have it "fully operational" by next year, he said.

Donofrio, who heads up IBM's $5 billion-plus research organization, spoke at length to the trade show audience about what he sees as the increasing convergence of biology and technology. In addition to IBM's development of carbon nanotubes,material 10,000 times thinner than a human hair,Donofrio said the company is working feverishly to bring "grid computing" to the fore. The evolving model includes clusters of super computers that essentially create super networks, which can then be dedicated for specific solutions.

"We're even developing our own 'intra grid' at IBM," Donofrio said, by putting together a system that will enable IBMers to share and develop information across the globe under one gridded super computing system.

IBM is also working with the University of Pennsylvania on another grid, which Donofrio said will focus on the problem of breast cancer and lead to a massive data collection that will assist in the detection and diagnosis of the disease in individual patients.

"There is no need to belabor the explosion of the Internet," Donofrio said. In addition to grid computing, he said, a key element to the continued growth of computing will center around Linux as an open standard.

"Linux will do for applications what the Internet did for networking and computing," Donofrio said.

The IBM executive noted, though, that it is one challenge to develop the technology but another to have it gain market acceptance.

"It is much easier to build something than it is to sell something," he said.