The Sony PlayStation 3 is being used as part of a supercomputer yet again, as military researchers look to harness the Cell processor's power. As part of the US Air Force's Condor Cluster, 1,700 PS3 processors are used to reach 500 trillion calculations per second.
All Department of Defense (DoD) users will be able to use the Condor system, though there is a growing list of projects that will be utilizing the powerful cluster. The project originally started with less than 30 PS3 consoles -- chosen due to the console's hardware power and price -- with the project expanding over the past few years.
Condor isn't necessarily designed to compete with supercomputers, but researchers wanted to ensure it's compatible with military operations.
The United States Air Force looks to use the PS3 for research topics ranging from radar enhancement to pattern recognition research. An enhanced ability to custom analyze text, images and video will offer a new tool for military officials hoping to analyze satellite imagery and other military intelligence files.
Meanwhile, the AF will continue to support traditional supercomputers -- and will look to upgrade and maintain its current supercomputer technology.
The $2 million project is able to analyze 30 pages of information every second with 99.9% accuracy -- and can fill in text and other information automatically while ensuring a stable process.
Over the next year, researchers believe it'll be possible to significantly improve Condor Cluster's power to keep up with newer supercomputers.
"It is about the 35th or 36th fastest supercomputer in the world, but with some upgrades in the next eight or nine months we could boost this to, say, the 20th fastest, and at the same time make it the greenest supercomputer," said Mark Barnell, Air Force Research Laboratory Director of Computing, in a statement.
A leading reason behind the USAF's adoption of the PS3s, according to researchers, is the cost-savings benefit by purchasing PS3s rather than a traditional supercomputer. Similar cost-saving efforts have also led to other groups using the PS3 for research purposes at a significantly lower cost.
Researchers have found benefits using PS3s as research tools, but USAF officials also had to overcome technical and logistical issues that emerged. As additional units were added, there were heating problems related to too many PS3s and a lack of space and cooling.
The PS3's power has been harnessed by the military and medical researchers in the past, and will remain popular due to its cost effectiveness. However, Sony's decision to remove "Other OS" Linux support is a blow to many organizations that wished to utilize it for supercomputing purposes. Decisions like this limit how the PS3 can be used, which is something that the PS3 hacking community might help researchers with.
Meanwhile, the USAF had to instead focus on regular PS3 units as the PS3 Slim faced its own issues that need to be addressed in the future. Expect the PS3 and PS3 Slim to both be more widely used in supercomputing projects in the future, because it's still a cost-effective method for universities and companies looking to save a few dollars.
