US Air Force combines 1,760 PlayStation 3 consoles to create super computer

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has unveiled its newest supercomputer, a behemoth system constructed of nearly 2,000 PlayStation 3s, Gamasutra reports.

The Condor Cluster, as it’s been named, is capable of 500 TFLOPS per second, and includes 1,760 PS3s, 168 separate graphical processing units, and 84 coordinating servers. The engineers worked with Sony to obtain the systems, and used older models instead of the Slim due to lack of Linux support.

The decision to use PS3s wasn’t just a publicity stunt. The AFRL estimates that the system cost of $2 million is only 5-10% the cost of an equally powerful system built out of computer components bought separately. It also consumes only 10% of the energy required by comparable supercomputers. The ribbon-cutting is scheduled for today at Wright-Paterson Air Force Base in Rome, NY. Afterwards, it will be used for processing satellite imagery, along with research into fields like artificial intelligence, radar enhancement, and pattern recognition.

[Read full story at Feed the Gamer]