Distributed computing frameworks like Hadoop and Spark hold enabled processing of "spacious data" sets -- but that's not enough for modeling surprise/rare "black swan" or complex events. Just think of scenarios in disaster planning (earthquakes,terrorist attacks, financial system collapse); biology (including disease); urban planning (cities, and transportation,energy power grids); military defense ... and other complex systems where unknown behaviors and properties can emerge. They can't be modeled based on (by definition impossible) limited data. But what whether companies and governments *could* acknowledge these seemingly impossible questions -- through simulations? MORE
Source: a16z.com