PlayStation 3 Clusters Providing Low-Cost Supercomputing to Universities

When its not crunching data brought back by spy plane missions, the US Air Force's PlayStation 3 super-computer (nicknamed "Condor") is now being loaned out to universities so they can crunch slightly less dangerous data.

One of those institutions is the University of Dayton in Ohio, where it's being put to work creating "artificial neural networks".

[Bear_Grylls]

Is it connecting to PSN correctly?

[Joni-Ice]

LOL...No it has different software. Never was on PSN servers.

[gamingdroid]

If it was, Sony might have disabled the feature especially if the air force is loaning it to others!

[rockleex]

"...where it's being put to work creating artificial neural networks."

The birth of Skynet? @_@

[undercovrr]

I'm guessing Air Force is gonna buy a crapload of "Project cafe's " when they come out as it is supposedly more powerful than the ps3.

[Ducky]

It's not exactly about power though.

PS3's were sold at loss by Sony as their strategy is to gain revenue through future software sales.
So, from a server point of view, you get an awesome bang for your buck.

[rockleex]

They're using PS3's because of THE WAY the Cell Processor crunches numbers, and at a pretty cheap price.

"The Condor Supercomputer’s PlayStation 3, Taha said, is particularly well suited for neural network research. “The PS3’s Cell processor handles a lot of parallelism,” Taha said, “like neurons in a brain.”

[Nes_Daze]

They should pay those hackers a visit...:)