Air Force Builds Supercomputer from 2,000 PS3's

[Guild McCommunist]

Not breaking news, but rather interesting.

Sony's been bragging for a while now that the PlayStation 3 "only does everything," and now they can add yet another item to the list: neuromorphic computing. According to military news site Stars and Stripes, a U.S. Air Force research facility in Rome, N.Y. plans to link 2,000 of Sony's machines in order to form a bargain-bin supercomputer.

Called the 500 TeraFLOPS Heterogeneous Cluster, the massive collection of PS3s will be used to process everything from synthetic-aperture radar images to programs designed to mimic the human mind's ability to recognize pictures.

Dr. Richard Linderman, senior scientist for Advanced Computing Architectures at the Rome facility, explains: "With Neuromorphic Computing, as an example, we will broadcast an image to all PS3s and ask if it matches an image it has in its hard drive."

"Humans can routinely do these things, but a computer struggles to do it," added the lab's high performance computing director Mark Barnell. "In a general sense, we are interested in making it autonomous."

The Air Force researchers opted to use PS3s for their studies because of the console's low price-to-performance ratio, as well as the system's relatively small power consumption rate. The cell processor's ability to easily work in tandem with other cells also played an important part in the researchers' decision.

"Supercomputers used to be unique with unique processors. By taking advantage of a growing market, the gaming market, we are bringing the price performance to just $2 to $3 per gigaFLOPS," Linderman commented.

Source

 

[outgum]

....i thought the Playstation 3 was a gaming console.
Sounds like Sony think by bragging about this so that someone will buy 2000 Ps3's to try mimic it.
Lolz.

 

[raulpica]

Dr. Linderman should expect framedrops and required hd-installs in his calculations

(If you can't get it, it's a joke)

 

[Hatsu]

Dr. Linderman should expect framedrops and required hd-installs in his calculations

I lol'd.

This is actually pretty cool!

 

[DeltaBurnt]

I actually already knew about this, they do this all the time. They wait until they get in a good price range and buy them. It's actually cheaper than making a single super computer from scratch.

 

[ojsinnerz.]

Well, you're only a week late, Mr. Communist.

 

[mkoo]

I thought US Air Force had Asgard computers by now..

 

[zeromac]

I wonder how many NDSes it would take

 

[agentgamma]

Imagine system linking 2000 PS3s together in a game

 

[zeromac]

Imagine system linking 2000 PS3s together in a game

I believe thats called M.A.G

 

[SPH73]

This is all bullsh*t PR. Just like that disgusting "PS3 helps cure cancer" crap. That was all a lie.

Remember when Sadam Hussein allegedly bought 4000 PS2's to use as a super computer? I do. And this is more of the same bullsh*t. Sony's great at producing this crap. I can't believe people are dumb enough to fall for this same lie twice. Its the same lie, only now its the US government instead of Saddam.

BS BS BS BS BS. People are f'ing stupid and it makes me sad.

Iraq Buys 4000 PS2s

US Buys 2200 PS3s

Meanwhile back in the real world development on the current CELL chip and the next gen CELL chip has been cancelled. Its dead end technology.

IBM kills off cell processor development

 

[Dagatahas]

Would this mean that there would be about 2000 PS3 Blue Ray drives and assorted parts sold off as goverment surplus?

 

[Jeff88]

This is all bullsh*t PR. Just like that disgusting "PS3 helps cure cancer" crap. That was all a lie.

Remember when Sadam Hussein allegedly bought 2000 PS2's to use as a super computer? I do. And this is more of the same bullsh*t. Sony's great at producing this crap. I can't believe people are dumb enough to fall for this same lie twice. Its the same lie, only now its the US government instead of Saddam.

BS BS BS BS BS. People are f'ing stupid and it makes me sad.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/19/ir...playstation_2s/

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/us-air-...puter-20091130/

Meanwhile back in the real world development on the current CELL chip and the next gen CELL chip has been cancelled. Its dead end technology.

I think a fanboy in in the denial stage now.

 

[SPH73]

I think a fanboy in in the denial stage now.

You're the only fanboy here matey.

If you believe the US military can't get anything better than a kids toy with a discontinued processor, then well.....

I'm not going to say it...

Believe what you will. That's basically the point of a PR piece like this. It doesn't have to be true, just so long as the fanboys believe this nonsense and then spread it around the web. People believe these lies because they WANT to believe them. They're written for fanboys just like yourself.

But hey, now that Saddam is dead maybe you can score one of the 400O PS2s he bought. I'm sure they're just lying around somewhere.

 

[Westside]

Anyone who works in the military or with information systems will tell you this is a terrible joke. Why is this not in EOF?

 

[purplesludge]

It's fake I've heard this same thing a while ago and the picture was apparently taken 8/25/09.

 

[Hatsu]

Anyone who works in the military or with information systems will tell you this is a terrible joke. Why is this not in EOF?

It's fake?

 

[Maz7006]

Anyone who works in the military or with information systems will tell you this is a terrible joke. Why is this not in EOF?

Listen to the guy that KNOWS !!!!!

Complete fucking bullshit. US military 2000 PS3's....who the fuck comes up with this shit.

 

[Bladexdsl]

if it was a REAL super computer it wouldn't have needed that many ps3

 

[Hatsu]

if it was a REAL super computer it wouldn't have needed that many ps3

Just curious, how many would you need?