Sometime next year, developers will boot up the next generation of supercomputers, machines whose vast increases in processing power will accelerate the transformation of the scientific method, experts say.

Supercomputers and their simulations are becoming so powerful that they essentially have introduced a new step in the time-honored scientific method that moves from theory to hypothesis to experimental confirmation, some experts contend.

“They are a tool that really helps stimulate the imagination of scientists and engineers in ways that previously weren’t possible,” said David Turek, vice president of supercomputing at IBM. “You had theory and hypothesis and experimentation. Well, now scientists are admitting that computation is an important part of this, as well.”