U.S. Air Force Constructed One of the World’s Fastest Computers Out of PlayStations

The PlayStation 2 was initially released to the public. It was believed that the PlayStation 2’s computer was powerful enough to launch nuclear weapons. It was an amazing comparison. Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi dictator, decided that he would try to buy thousands more gaming consoles. So many, that the U.S. government had no choice but to restrict their exports.

Saddam seems to have given the order. Air Force An idea: Build a supercomputer using many PlayStations.

Ten years after Saddam attempted to conquer the world with thousands of gaming consoles and thousands of other devices, the United States Air Force assumed the role of computer scientist and built the 33rd fastest computer in the world within its Air Force Research Laboratory.

Only, instead of PlayStation 2, the Air Force used 1,760 Sony PlayStation 3 Consoles. They called it “The.” “Condor Cluster,” It was also the Department of Defense’s fastest computer.

The USAF placed the computer in Rome (New York), near Syracuse. It intended to use it for radar enhancement, pattern recognition and satellite imagery processing. Artificial intelligence research would also be used for future Air Force projects.

The computer’s primary function is to process imagery, and it does this job admirably. It can analyze ultra-high-resolution images very quickly, at a rate of billions of pixels per minute. Why use a PlayStation console instead of a computer or another proprietary technology? The PlayStation was $300 and the best technology in imagery processing would have been much more expensive. The core of the computer was made up of approximately $1 million of PlayStations.

The result was a 500 TeraFLOPS HEterogeneous Cluster that was powered by PS3s, but connected to subcluster head of dual-quad Xeons equipped with multiple GPGPUs. The video-game consoles required 90% less energy to run than any other alternative.

If the Air Force had made a more conventional machine to create a processing hub, it could have cost the branch upwards of $10million. The system would also not have been nearly as efficient.

The PlayStation’s ability install other operating systems was what allowed this cluster to be created, and it is what ultimately endeda disastrous program.

Sony released a firmware update in 2010 that removed the ability of the PlayStation to install other operating systems. This was similar to the Linux OS used by the Air Force in its supercomputer cluster. After the Air Force had unboxed hundreds upon hundreds of PlayStations and scanned each one to run Linux on it, Sony then ran updates a few months later.

The firmware update was not required by the Air Force. Sony couldn’t force it on their devices. However, if one or more of the USAF’s PlayStations were to go down, that would mean the end of the cluster. Any device that is refurbished, or new purchased, will not be able run Linux.

The firmware update was the final blow to the supercomputer, and all other supercomputers that had been created by academic institutions. No word was ever given as to whether Saddam ever made his supercomputer.

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