Beyond the Gamers: Thousands of PlayStations Create Air Force Super Computer

The U.S. Air Force recently issued a request for proposals to purchase 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 video game consoles. The Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, NY, is interested in the chip technology inside the PS3, specifically the Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, according a blog post by Gartner  Inc. a technology analyst, and reported by ComputerWorld. The Air Force is studying whether the PS3 chips could be a cost-effective technology for modernizing the military’s high-performance computing systems. Supercomputer experts at the Air Force already have 336 PS3 consoles hooked together in an experimental Linux-based cluster. Now they want 2,200 more to expand the research project. The laboratory evaluated chips from other vendors, such as IBM and Intel Corp., but found the PS3 chips to be much cheaper. Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/345642/Air_Force_Taps_PlayStation_3_for_Research