Inside out

Our fortnightly digest of facts and rumours from Brussels and beyond.

Chasing tails

Disappointing, but not surprising, to see that France and Germany are engaging in a mini-arms race to host “Europe’s most powerful supercomputer” (see related article). It has long been the ploy of IBM, Cray and other computer manufacturers to foster such ‘competition’ in the interests of their own order books. Researchers, and taxpayers, would be far better served if funding agencies saved their euros for the less exotic, but more productive, chore of optimising code to get the most out of the computers they already have.