Context: In the global effort to tackle the novel coronavirus pandemic, many countries have now employed supercomputers to help expedited research into the virus. Scientists are using supercomputers. These supercomputers can help in developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, by identifying the virus proteins that can help create immunity among humans.
Key Points

• As COVID-19 cases have been mounting the world over, an abundance of data is being made available to researchers, which supercomputers are using for modelling and analysis.
• To help find a drug that could work against the novel coronavirus, supercomputers are being employed to look through databases of existing drug compounds. 
• The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has spikes on its surface, which it uses to invade cells in the human body. Supercomputers are looking for antiviral drugs that could potentially bind with those spikes, thus inhibiting the virus from infecting humans.
• These computers can also help in developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, by identifying the virus proteins that can help create immunity among humans.
• The other ways in which supercomputers are helping include studying the structure and origin of the novel coronavirus, analysing the spread of the virus in a population, as well as how it interacts with cells in the human body.

Supercomputers for preventing Covid-19
1) USA

• In the US, a massive public-private effort called the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium has been launched, consisting industry players such as IBM, Google etc. The consortium provides scientists access to some of the world’s most powerful high-performance computing resources in support of COVID-19 research.

2) Japan

• In Japan, the government and the country’s top research laboratory will be using the Fugaku supercomputer, a successor to the ‘K’ computer– which in the past was known to have the highest calculation speed in the world.

3) China

• The Tianhe-1 supercomputer in China has been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to diagnose COVID-19 patients from chest scans.

4) India

• In India, the government owned Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has announced that it would collaborate with laboratories for performing drug repurposing simulations required towards the discovery of a new drug for COVID-19.