The U.S. Air Power used over 1,000 recreation consoles in 2010 to construct a supercomputer. Which one did they select?

Ranked because the thirty third largest supercomputer on this planet on the time, the “Condor Cluster” was constructed by the U.S. Air Power Analysis Laboratory (AFRL) utilizing 1,760 PlayStation 3 consoles. Located in Rome, New York, the system was constructed for radar enhancement, processing satellite tv for pc imagery, and researching AI. The overall value of the cluster was estimated to be solely about $2 million, a fraction of the price of comparable supercomputers on the time.

Whereas the PlayStation 3 was priced at round $400 on the time, it is reported that the AFRL was in any other case taking a look at an expense of $10,000 per unit for comparable know-how constructed with standard pc elements.

The PlayStation 3 console was chosen for its effectivity in dealing with high-res graphics in addition to its normal affordability. The “Condor Cluster” would come with 168 separate GPUs and 84 coordinating servers in a parallel array, able to performing 500 trillion floating-point operations per second (500 TFLOPS).

Whereas the PlayStation 3 was priced at round $400 on the time, it is reported that the AFRL was in any other case taking a look at an expense of $10,000 per unit for comparable know-how constructed with standard pc elements. The PS3 was additionally best for its ability to run Linux, though this function was later eliminated on account of safety issues, halting potential future tasks of PS3-based clusters.

The success of the Condor Cluster highlighted the potential of gaming know-how in scientific and navy purposes. The mission demonstrated how client electronics, usually used for leisure, might be repurposed for critical computational work – it could take another decade before GPUs would begin changing into mainstream processors for constructing large-language fashions, machine/AI coaching, and so forth.

Previous to the AFRL’s mission, Gaurav Khanna on the College of Massachusetts Dartmouth physics division constructed an identical machine utilizing nearly 200 PlayStation 3 consoles. His mission centered on astrophysical simulations, showcasing the broader tutorial curiosity in leveraging gaming consoles for complicated computational duties.