Case Study: Northeastern University achieves faster Zika outbreak modeling with Google for Education

Northeastern University runs 10 million Zika simulations with Google for Education

Northeastern University's MoBS lab faced the challenge of quickly modeling the spread of the Zika virus, a difficult task as only 20% of cases are symptomatic. To help public health officials predict infection rates, they needed immense computing power to run complex simulations and analyze massive datasets. They turned to Google for Education, utilizing Google Cloud products including Google Compute Engine and Preemptible Virtual Machines.

The solution from Google for Education enabled the lab to run millions of parallel simulations on Google Cloud. This approach drastically reduced analysis time from weeks to just hours, allowing the team to perform over 10 million simulations and process hundreds of terabytes of data. The results provided public authorities with critical predictions on the virus's spread, and the model established a template for analyzing future epidemics.

Northeastern University