It will be vital to the researcher and formative to school children learning about physics or chemistry. Our simulations and our observational datasets grow larger and more complex by the day. One must be able to digest the data, ask questions of it. There are many questions we can ask of these complex simulations - many questions that in the past made no sense to ask or had no answer that could be easily conveyed. The idea is to serve as a catalyst in the service of science, bringing useful new technologies to bear on valid problems - then turning that technology back into something usable.
Scientific relevance is a primary metric of success.
Communication of end results to the scientific community and general public is a priority.