Large file sharing is extremely slow. We want to send data at 400Gbs per second, and outside of a few research institutions, this is not viable. The main reason is that the materials used to form electrical signal connections absorb all of the signal power.
Don De Groot researches signal integrity, or the interconnections in high speed computing and communication equipment. He uses measurement based modeling in collecting measurements at high frequencies of the fundamental electrical properties of the materials in the paths (wire, conductors, metal, and insulation). In collecting the measurements, they extract parameters, or the model, that designers can put into their computer-aided design tools. These parameters are essential in making the interconnections between devices more efficient and enable data to travel at more gigabits per second.
This research ultimately means that you can send vast amounts of data from one point to another much faster. Areas that would benefit from this type of technology are medical labs (imaging), scientific computing (large data-sets), weather modeling, intelligence, the defense department, etc. Anywhere that needs large amounts of data transferred at a fast rate would be aided in this research, and ultimately, it can change the world.
