As a long time Folding At Home contributor, I found the following statement to be incorrect:
"Total power of their distributed computing network to 1-10 petaflops. At the upper end of that target, the network would be faster than any current supercomputer, at least in terms of FLOPS."
The fastest supercomputer in the world is IBM's Blue Gene/L, which clocks in at 280.6 teraflops http://www.top500.org/. The distributed network of Folding at Home is currently 171.2 teraflops http://folding.stanford.edu/stats.html/ as measured by sustained contributions from active members. The Folding At Home network is already the second most powerful, if ranked by the Top 500 list criteria. At any range from 1-10 petaflops, the Folding at Home network would be more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer in the world.
Slashdot Mirror
As a long time Folding At Home contributor, I found the following statement to be incorrect:
"Total power of their distributed computing network to 1-10 petaflops. At the upper end of that target, the network would be faster than any current supercomputer, at least in terms of FLOPS."
The fastest supercomputer in the world is IBM's Blue Gene/L, which clocks in at 280.6 teraflops http://www.top500.org/. The distributed network of Folding at Home is currently 171.2 teraflops http://folding.stanford.edu/stats.html/ as measured by sustained contributions from active members. The Folding At Home network is already the second most powerful, if ranked by the Top 500 list criteria. At any range from 1-10 petaflops, the Folding at Home network would be more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer in the world.