U.S. Air Force Finishes PS3 Supercomputer of Epic Proportions

[Tom Goldman]

U.S. Air Force Finishes PS3 Supercomputer of Epic Proportions

The Air Force plays Call of Duty on the most powerful game console in existence.

The United States Air Force Research Laboratory has completed what it calls the Condor Cluster, a supercomputer made entirely of PlayStation 3 consoles. The Condor Cluster, housed in Rome, New York, reportedly has capabilities heads and tails above every other interactive computer in the Department of Defense.

Made of 1,760 PlayStation 3 processors and 168 general purpose processors, the Condor Cluster provides extreme power for its relatively low cost. It has the ability to calculate 500 trillion floating point operations per second (TFLOPS), but was made for $2 million thanks to the cost of the PS3. Mark Barnell, director of the Air Force Research Laboratory's High Power Computing division, says this is "a cost savings of between 10 and 20 times for the equivalent capability." It also uses 1/10 the power of a comparable supercomputer, apparently making it "green."

The Condor Cluster is not the fastest supercomputer in town, with the big boys currently able to compute a couple of quadrillion FLOPS, but it'll still be useful to the military. The entire Department of Defense will have access to the Condor Cluster on a shared basis, and it is predicted to be used for "neuromorphic artificial intelligence research, synthetic aperture radar enhancement, image enhancement and pattern recognition research." These are likely codewords for "so the U.S. government can look through your window more easily."

The Air Force will cut the ribbon on the Condor Cluster today, December 1, 2010, making it open for computational business. The Condor Cluster might be a modern marvel of cheap supercomputing technology, but the Air Force was troubled [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100631-Air-Force-Might-Be-Troubled-by-PS3-Other-OS-Removal] by Sony's choice to remove the option to install Linux in a firmware update, making it harder to find replacement systems should a console break. If you've got an unboxed PS3 "Phat" laying around, keep the old firmware on that puppy and the U.S. military might make you an offer someday.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31784/US_Air_Force_Creates_Powerful_Supercomputer_Out_Of_PS3s.php]

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[Quaxar]

I wonder if I could hack into their system using only a DualShock.

 

[Super Jamz]

I'm kind of half-wondering whether they'd conduct some sort of clandestine deal with Sony to have the firmware update delivered by USB stick or something.

 

[DayDark]

predicted to be used for "neuromorphic artificial intelligence research

We're doomed!!

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

I think I just came a little bit... The uses for this could be quite interesting... I'm looking forward to hearing whatthey do with it... or what they SAY they're doing with it

 

[Fumbleumble]

AMERICA FUCK YEA!

Uhh.. 'Japan, fuck yeah' I think you meant to say..after all they designed and made the consoles.. America (Microsoft) should be pretty pissed that their own military won't use their hardware.

 

[Spudgun Man]

I wonder if Sony will have the balls to press charges for reverse engineering?

 

[Tartarga]

My teacher just told me about this. Can't wait to see what they do with all that UNLIMITED POWER!

 

[Kross]

I used to work at AFRL (my hometown is Rome, NY)! Even back then, I remember a group down the hall that tore apart the original Xbox to use their own hard drives and games for LAN parties... err "Research".

 

[DarkSpectre]

It is just the hardware of the PS3 not the OS. We are linking them using our own OS. It will be able to do a lot of things like recognize patterns in money transfers or enhance radar data and recognize targets. The AI research will be cool too. You should see some real neat results effecting the civilian world in a few years. Really cool piece of tech.

 

[Daemascus]

I though they gave up on this when Sony made it so the PS3 couldnt run other OS's.

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

And then the Japanese military built a supercomputer out of Xboxes and then they both became sentient, and thus began the 1000 year console war.

 

[ionveau]

X box<PS3<PC, removing the other OS thing was a dumb move

 

[cjbos81]

I don't mean to tell sony how to run their business, but maybe they should start constructing these type of computers specifically for the military. Apparently there is a market for it.

 

[WanderingFool]

And then the Japanese military built a supercomputer out of Xboxes and then they both became sentient, and thus began the 1000 year console war.

But it only lasted for about three months, as the Xbox cluster went RODD. Japan should have used the newer ones...