Advanced computation has already had a profound impact on the conceptualization and analysis of problems across a broad spectrum of intellectual activity. In the sciences, engineering, medicine, humanities, and arts, we can point to significant intellectual advances enabled by massed data (and its increasingly sophisticated analysis), numerical simulation (as an alternative or adjunct to experimentation in the study of complex processes), and rapid communication (which allows research results to be quickly pooled, potentially generating new insights). A common theme underlying these advances is an increased focus on understanding entire systems rather than individual components.

My goal in this essay is to explore the ways in which computation has changed, and will continue to change, the nature of research. Using examples from many disciplines, I first examine how data, simulation, and communication are being applied in different contexts today. I then extrapolate from current practice to hypothesize the likely situation two decades from now. Clearly, a far greater quantity of data will then be available in digital and online form. Perhaps less obviously, new tools will allow for the largescale automated analysis of that data and the aggregation and second-level analysis of evidence obtained via that primary analysis. I assert that the ultimate impact will be not just increased productivity for individual researchers, but a profound change in every aspect of the research process, from how data is obtained to how hypotheses are generated and results communicated.