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US Air Force Buying Another 2,200 PS3s

Posted by Soulskill on from the quick-who-knows-a-good-ps3-flight-sim dept.

bleedingpegasus sends word that the US Air Force will be grabbing up 2,200 new PlayStation 3 consoles for research into supercomputing. They already have a cluster made from 336 of the old-style (non-Slim) consoles, which they've used for a variety of purposes, including "processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and 'neuromorphic computing.'" According to the Justification Review Document (DOC), "Once the hardware configuration is implemented, software code will be developed in-house for cluster implementation utilizing a Linux-based operating software."

2 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cell processor by huge · · Score: 3, Informative

    Are we still at the point where we can't get hold of Cell processors for machines specifically designed for this sort of task?

    I haven't checked the details yet, but I was told that IBM QS21 is Cell based blade system

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    -- Reality checks don't bounce.
  2. Re:Wow by kriston · · Score: 3, Informative

    Did we read the proposal linked from the article? It specifies PlayStation 3 model CECHP01 which does, indeed, run Linux. I wondered, though, how successful they are going to be at finding 2,200 units. Distributors are running out of new/old stock of this model, as many compute cluster builders are trying to get them before they're all gone.

    Here is the proposal for those who didn't actually bother to RFA:
    https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=bac60f8808fa1e221597573901a7cd6b&tab=core&_cview=1&cck=1&au=&ck=

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    Kriston