Have you ever tried to download a high-resolution graphic, movie, or video game fromthe Internet? Such downloads can take hours,and if you’re lucky, your computer won’t lockup and the download will come throughsuccessfully. Now imagine that by installing asimple adapter into your computer you couldtransfer information up to 148,000 times fasterthan a high-speed modem connection and up to23,000 times faster than a DSL connection.This super-adapter’s plug-and-play installation,reliability, and unprecedented speed willrevolutionize how computers and the Internethave a positive impact on our lives.Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)optimized Intel’s® PRO/10GbE LR ServerAdapter and its associated subsystems, therebyenhancing its performance by 300%. The 10-Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (10GbE) consists ofan Intel® 82597EX 10GbE controller, 512kilobytes of flash memory, and Intel® 1310-nanometer serial optics. Such enhanced speedbenefits numerous markets:•Entertainment markets include videoediting and animation (10GbE networksand adapters were used in making the 2003blockbuster movie Hulk), video- andmusic-on-demand, video games, and file-sharing applications such as iTunes, Kazaa,Napster, and Gnutella.•Worldwide modeling and simulationmarkets include modeling global weatherprediction and the spread of wildfires,simulating the communicability ofcontagious diseases, studying galaxyformations and supernova explosions,modeling and forecasting financialmarkets, and sequencing the humangenome.•Data acquisition and data mining marketsinclude military intelligence andreconnaissance, basic-science research(fusion, bioinformatics, and aerospace),and data warehousing.•Medical applications include interactivedistance education (both for patients andmedical personnel), expedited patientcare, and enhanced diagnostic imaging.Intel and LANL operated under the auspicesof a nondisclosure agreement that stipulatedthat modifications or optimizations to theexisting code base or configuration of the10GbE would be fed back to Intel. In return,LANL would have unencumbered access tothe hardware, firmware, low-level software,extensive documentation, and the potential forpublishing its results. The laboratory’s simplenondisclosure agreement enabledcomputational scientist Dr. Wu-chen Feng totransfer the technology quickly and easily.Many other institutions were mired in somuch “legalese” that they could not come toterms with Intel. 10GbE could revolutionizethe impact of computers and the Internet onour lives, allowing compute and storage nodesdistributed around the world to beinterconnected and serve as the basis fortomorrow’s virtual worldwide supercomputer.