Gamers Conquer the World

Tomorrow's issue of Nature will report on how the Army is using gaming technology to simulate the whole world.

The US army has teamed up with a computer games company to create a simulation of the whole Earth.

In a bid to help soldiers train around the globe without travelling, army researchers are working with There, a company based in Menlo Park, California, that specializes in games set in realistic three-dimensional environments. Together they will build a virtual model of the entire planet, using existing data about Earth's terrain. Robert Gehorsam, a senior vice-president at There, says that the product will model the real world as closely as possible.

The artificial world will help the army to practise intelligence work, patrols and planning, as well as encounters with civilians. A group of soldiers who served in Iraq will test the system in the spring; a final version is hoped to be in place by September. But the team has a long way to go — so far only part of Kuwait City has been modelled in detail.