PS3 processors enlisted to fight Alzheimer's

Stan Beer
Sunday, 27 August 2006 08:38

Your IT - Home IT

US scientists intend to build a supercomputing network from idle PlayStation 3 boxes sitting in gamers' homes in a project aimed at understanding diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer.

Apparently the cell processor in PS3 consoles is not only great at graphics rendering in games but is also particularly suitable for the more serious biological graphics applications involved in the fight against diseases.

A project started by US biological scientists, called folding@home (FAH), has already built a large distributed network of PCs to simulate the shape of proteins and examine how the way they fold may cause specific diseases.

The scientists at FAH want to enlist the PS3 consoles in gamers' homes into the network when they're not being used. Volunteers with PS3 boxes would download a piece of software that would enable FAH to use their processors when they're idle.

According to FAH, a network of 10,000 PS3 boxes would enable processing performance four times as fast as the most powerful supercomputer in the world, the IBM BlueGene/L computer in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the University of California.

However, with analysts predicting that about. 30 million PS3 computers will be sold over the next five years, it is conceivable that the network could eventually involve millions of PS3 consoles in a network of unprecedented computing power.

Sony is working together with FAH on real-time protein folding simulation software and a graphics viewing interface for the PS3, which is expected to be ready when it hits the market in November.