U.S. Military building PS3 supercomputer
- November 25, 2009 13:26 PM PST
The U.S. Air Force is using over 2,500 PS3 units linked together to conduct research on the future of supercomputing.
The U.S. Air Force has submitted a procurement request for 2,200 new PS3 units to supplement the 336 that are already employed at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, NY.
A recent InformationWeek article reveals that Rome hosts the Air Force Research Laboratory's information directorate, where the military is conducting research on the possibilities of supercomputing "to determine the best fit for implementation of various applications" that take advantage of networked PS3 Cell proessors running Linux. Both commercial and internally-developed software is being tested in an effort to discover possible military applications for a PS3 supercomputing network; so far the Air Force has had success employing the cluster to quickly process high-def video, compile multiple radar images into high-res composites and even create computers with human brain-like qualities, known as "neuromorphic computing."
This research is being funded by our tax dollars, as the Air Force Research Laboratory information directorate won a $2 million grant from the Department of Defense as part of their High Performance Computing Modernization Program. The funding is intended to further development and evaluation of supercomputing technology, and indeed the information directorate evaluated several alternatives (including traditional linked Xeon servers) before settling on the PS3 as the most powerful and cost-effective option.
The PS3 is valued chiefly for it's powerful Cell processor and welcoming attitude towards alternate operating systems like Linux, which allows groups like U.S. Customs Enforcement's Cyber Crime Center and the Los Alamos National Laboratory to build supercomputers capable of mimicking neurological functions or cracking pedophile passwords.
The military hasn't released any photograghs of their supercomputing rig, so here's a picture of another unconventional use for the PS3.
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- Nov 25 2009 at 03:42:44:PM PST
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Uh, good luck with that? I hope they don't plan on installing Linux on the Slims or anything...
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@codizzle, he didn't really do anything to the PS3. He just cut out a large part of the top panel, then cooked using the large amount of heat the PS3 produces (probably with a little help from modding). I bet the console still played games though. If he really wanted to flash fry though, he should have used a 360. I repair those things and all you need is to remove the fans and watch your food fast fry.
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damn, first it catches rapists, and now this. what CANT the ps3 do? and to anyone that tries to say something stupid, it DOES have awesome exclusives, it DOES have free internet, and it DOES work, unlike xbox 360.
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Who would've thought that a video gaming system would be used for our government research programs? Nobody saw that happening back when Atari was king,that's for sure.
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Has anyone wondered why the military is always finding weird uses for the playstations???
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They have no more enemies that's why they're just playing war games on the PS3.
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So they're buying 2300 ps3's? Haha that's like half of what Sony will sell this month :-P.
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