ABSTRACT
Agent-based simulation is increasingly being used to model social phenomena involving large numbers of agents. However, existing agent-based simulation platforms severely limit the kinds of the social phenomena that can modeled, as they do not support large scale simulations involving agents with complex behaviors. In this paper, we present a scalable agent-based simulation framework that supports modeling of complex social phenomena. The framework integrates a new simulation platform that exploits distributed computer architectures, with an extension of a multi-agent programming technology that allows development of complex deliberative agents. To show the scalability of our framework, we briefly describe its application to the development of a model of the spread of COVID-19 involving complex deliberative agents in the US state of Virginia. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.