Jakarta, INTI - An international team of scientists led by China has launched the world’s largest cosmological simulation, named “HyperMillennium,” to study the evolution of the universe using supercomputing technology in Beijing on Monday, May 4, 2026.
Massive Simulation Reconstructs the Universe
The simulation covers a cube spanning 12 billion light-years and contains 4.2 trillion virtual dark matter particles.
Using N-body numerical simulation techniques, the research team successfully reconstructed the evolution of cosmic structures over 10 billion years following the Big Bang.
The technology enables scientists to effectively “rewind time” to better understand the formation of galaxies and other cosmic structures.
The simulation also incorporates galaxy formation physics models that generate detailed catalogs containing information on galaxy positions, brightness, and other characteristics.
Research Support and Computational Breakthroughs
Researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories of China Wang Qiao stated, “The simulation was completed with high force resolution and time accuracy, achieving major breakthroughs in computational scale.”
He added that the simulation enables in-depth studies of rare cosmic structures with strong statistical capabilities.
The project utilized specialized software called “PhotoNs” and involved more than 10,000 accelerator cards following over a decade of development.
In total, the simulation consumed more than 100 million CPU core hours and 10 million accelerator card hours, generating approximately 13 petabytes of data.
Mike Boylan-Kolchin described the simulation as a “computational marvel” that could help uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.
Meanwhile, Volker Springel said he was “deeply impressed” by the simulation’s accuracy and scale, which he believes redefines numerical cosmology.
The research findings have been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal and demonstrate strong consistency with observations of the Abell 2744 galaxy cluster.
Initial simulation data has now been released to the global scientific community through the National Astronomical Data Center.
Conclusion
The launch of “HyperMillennium” marks a major breakthrough in cosmological research and large-scale scientific computing. Through advanced supercomputing capabilities and massive data processing, the international research team has created one of the most detailed simulations of the universe ever developed, opening new opportunities to study galaxy formation, dark matter, and the evolution of cosmic structures with unprecedented accuracy.
Read more: Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Records Rp15.2 Trillion Revenue in Q1 2026, Marking the Highest Revenue in Company History.